🚀 go-pugleaf

I, too, am incapable of staying out of the fray.  I have a couple of
observations regarding the "gatekeeping" and "lockpicking" metaphors
we're batting around.
1.  When I teach a 300-level Writing for the Professions class the
students DEMAND that I teach them grammar.  They see this as their last
shot to learn the rules before they start writing to/for someone who has
the capacity to hire and fire them.  Who do we think we are?  If we've got
it and they want it, let's give it to them.  Now, HOW we give it to them is
another issue that I'll not touch here.
2.  When I'm on a plane or getting my hair cut and someone asks me what I do
and I tell them I'm an English teacher s/he invariably makes a comment to the
effect of "Oh, I'd better watch my grammar and talk correctly."  This is what
the general public thinks we do, folks.  These are the parents of the students
we're teaching and these are the constituents who pay our salaries at state
schools.
3.  This topic has received more attention on this bulletin board than any
I've seen since I joined.  So, it's not just the students and the public who
want it, it seems we do too.  Why don't we get off our high horses and realize
that we are employees of the university, and we should teach what our
constituents (students and parents) want us to teach.  Changing
metaphors, we have a product, we see a need in the market, we should maximize
our profit and sell what the market demands.  We are never "gatekeepers" and
only sometimes lock-picker enablers.  Most of the time we're employees.