ILE-CC Curriculum

[Purple]

To: ML - what are you citing as proof of poor writing skills?
To: 82redleg - re: "what you are asking for." Who is "you?" Also, lets limit this to empirical data re: the poor writing skills. Lets not work on speculation.
To: Tom - Concur. Not sure why we are addressing ppt as yukon didn't refer to ppt.
To: 669guy - Are you referring to the Belize Army? ILE "preparing" a FG officer? Seriously? How much time in grade does the average ILE student have as a FG? Let me know what you find out and we'll talk. Honestly I believe that most of us have post high school education that involved a fair amount of communicating.

Rather than attacking yukon...lets get into dialog. I can speculate that I would be embarrased to show some of the curriculum to a European officer. I believe (implies opinion) that we should focus more on forum/dialog and study of how policy and actions of other nations affects and impacts us.

Have a great day!

(no cheesy quote added)

[Tom Odom]

To: Tom - Concur. Not sure why we are addressing ppt as yukon didn't refer to ppt.

i addressed PPT as too many see writing bullets as writing. Seriously I have had Soldiers (NCO and Officer) tell me that PPT was their chosen medium. Others have pushed similar themes. One directed that we write only in bullets, stating that they were the same as a checklist. In a way he was correct; a bullet is like a checklist in that the reader has to either hear something to expand on it in a briefing, know something about it already so that the bullet merely jogs his memory, or (too often) create his own meaning.

Tom

[M.L.]

Purple-

I'm not citing anything, and I don't have to. I was offering my opinion.

If you will re-read my post, you will see the words "I think", "I'm not sure", and "I'd venture a guess", all of which imply opinion.

I guess I can cite myself....?

"I think many ILE students can't write worth a damn when they arrive at ILE." 1

1 L., M. "Maybe, but...", Post on SWJ Discussion Board Oct 8, 2010.

(See below for cheesy quote)

[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.

[82redleg]

To: 82redleg - re: "what you are asking for." Who is "you?" Also, lets limit this to empirical data re: the poor writing skills. Lets not work on speculation.

By "you", I was referring to Yukon, specifically his desire to "...personally I would rather spend more time in the classroom interacting with my peers, conducting practical exercises (Regional Strategic Concept, etc.)..."

Provide all the empirical data you want- I posted my opinion, in response to another's opinion. Ignore it, or heed it, or I don't care.