Maeve Maddox, the American English Doctor

Maeve Maddox has taught English at every level from pre-school to university.
Her academic qualifications are balanced by experience in office work and food service employment.
She writes from a realistic view of life and education that often differs from that of the people who make educational policy in this country.
For one thing, she believes that there is a great difference between “education” and “job training.”
She also believes that more effective public education K-12 would eliminate many of the social problems that plague this nation.

This site is dedicated to the idea that there is a difference between literacy and semi-literacy.
It assumes that it’s all right and not at all “elitist” for an educated person to know more than an uneducated person.
The underlying conviction here is that education does not belong solely to the Education Establishment.
Before there were public schools in America, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, and neighbors taught children how to read.

THE ABILITY TO READ IS THE KEY TO BECOMING EDUCATED.

The Establishment controls the way that formal instruction is delivered and measured in terms of occupational and professional qualifications, but an education is available to anyone who can read.

THERE’S NO SUBJECT MATTER YOU CAN LEARN IN A UNIVERSITY THAT YOU CAN’T LEARN AT YOUR PUBLIC LIBRARY

Mind you, attending a university can be a beautiful experience. There’s much to be gained from interaction with professors and passionate students that is not available to the autodidact. Nevertheless, it’s possible to become educated without going to college, just as it is possible to graduate from college without having acquired an education.

The AmericanEnglishDoctor considers the ability to speak a standard form of English the mark of an educated person. While many of us prefer to speak a home dialect in informal, everyday interaction with those who speak the same dialect, an educated person is able to speak a form of standard English when called for.

The AmEngDr asserts that there is nothing wrong with being uneducated or undereducated, but that there is something wrong with an expensive educational system that graduates millions of students who cannot speak or write a standard form of their native tongue, or who are ignorant of the most rudimentary information about their own culture and the cultures of the rest of the world.

AmericanEnglishDoctor.com is directed towards readers of every age and level of education: parents of infants; parents of school-age children; mature elementary and high school students; beginning teachers; college graduates–anyone, that is, who has an interest in language, cultural knowledge, or literacy in general.

The site is a work in progress. Please point out any dead links or other technological goof ups.