ILE-CC Curriculum

[Van]

"I think many ILE students can't write worth a damn when they arrive at ILE."

First hand experience indicates this is an accurate assessment.

[Van]

Let me restate this;

MANY ILE students are arriving unable to write to a standard I would submit before congress as an example of a properly trained and educated field grade officer. To be fair, I also believe the Army is currently suffering from an excess of PhDs who expect field grade officers to write like doctoral candidates, which is an irrational expectation of warfighters.

The goal, in my opinion, is to strike a balance of comptence in writing, and education in operational topics. The most rational thing for the Army and the field grades involved would be to have them execute an in class writing assessment, and reward high performers with a pass from further writing classes. Noone is punished or penalized, but people who meet or exceed the standard are rewared for their performance.

The volume of writing is kind of like this. If a student writes well, they aren't a challenge and aren't much of a burden. If the student needs more chances to improve, the writing assignments provide the student with more opportunities to improve.

This was difficult to write in a calm and professional fashion as I believe that writing is a critical communications tool that is being neglected for reasons of military expediency. This is always a bad rational for neglecting foundations.