Romantic Rhetoric

Does romantic rhetoric have to be the opposite of all of the other rhetorics we've learned about? Are romantic rhetoric and academic writing mutually exclusive?

I find myself often caught up in the same movement that sparked romantic rhetoric: the need for personally meaningful academic experiences. Perhaps this is because of my major: as someone Elementary Education, it has been drilled into my head that the best way to learn is through authentic experiences: let children use their senses to begin to understand a concept, THEN scaffold their learning through other means. After learning about the multitude of benefits this way of teaching offers, I find it hard to turn to any other method without finding it significantly less effective.

In my Elementary Education classes, we also learn about the problems that standardized testing, namely, the SOLs, pose. Some children have trouble mastering the specific facts that are included in the SOL curriculum but could give an outstanding explanation of a phenomenon not explicitly tested. Doesn't it make sense to assess students by giving them an opportunity to share their knowledge about a certain topic, as opposed to drilling them with multiple choice questions? And, does it always make sense to teach children from two totally different walks of life the same things? To some extent, yes -- I believe all children should know how to read, write and do everyday math effectively. But should the student who dreams to be an accountant be asked to master the same skills as the student who wants to be a potter? I don't think so. Perhaps specialization should be introduced into schools earlier than the college level. It's no accident that children learn best when they understand the significance and relevance of what they are learning, so it is important to make their education relevant to their lives.

Some people say that asking students to write about what is important to them, about relevant and personally-significant things, disallows them from learning how to write academically. Why does that have to be the case? Aside from the fact that students often enjoy writing in the romantic rhetoric style, that style is the best way through which children LEARN. So, why can't we apply this style -- which is an excellent teacher -- to the type of writing we want our students to produce? Why can't we use romantic rhetoric to teach students how we want them to write? Isn't there a happy medium? It makes no sense to me that the most effective teaching method and the most effective writing method have no common ground. So, why don't we combine the best way to teach with the best way to write?