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And, if you are going to HIRE SOMEONE for a position that involves speaking and writing for a living, hire somebody who can do those things, if not well, heaven forbid, at least passably! This is the part that really aggravates me...who hires these people?
Sometimes a manager must take the best of a mediocre lot, and hope the person can learn with coaching.
There is no grammar taught anymore. Remember parsing a sentence ?
There's barely any reading taught anymore..the audio book is played in the class while the students read along (or are supposed to).
I certainly cannot vouch for your schools; however, our schools teach grammar as well as have a huge emphasis upon direct reading instruction.
I am not exactly an "old-school" teacher, but I am not a fan of phonetic spelling beyond the 2nd grade (and not even then). The kids in my class (which is 2nd grade) know that I expect them to be beyond proficient in grammar and spelling at all times. I have very high expectations of them...and they rarely fail to meet those expectations....I love them...
Sometimes a manager must take the best of a mediocre lot, and hope the person can learn with coaching.
That's fine, for professions where what's at stake isn't the welfare of a bunch of children. When a person is charged with educating a bunch of kids, I'm not personally comfortable with, "Well, let's hope for the best from this person...fingers crossed!"
Of course, in order to attract a majority of stellar candidates, you need to offer stellar compensation...this isn't the case with teaching. So you end up with the few stellar candidates you may get because a handful of truly capable people are interested in doing the job DESPITE the pay.
As I have perused the various state forums on C-D, I have come across many threads started by people who claim to be teachers in the various public school systems. Many of the threads concern potential for teaching positions in different states and cities, for example. What has jumped out at me so many, many times however, is not the actual content of the threads themselves, but the abominable grammar, capitalization, and spelling in some of these teacher-generated posts. Seriously, a junior high teacher who wants to find a good-paying job writes, "I don't want to loose my union benefits that I have here," or, "i am tired of living somewhere where its cold all the time," or, "There laying off teachers here now," or even, "I have went to alot of job fairs."
Wow. Someone please enlighten me. Is it that the colleges are passing people through who they shouldn't, and shouldn't this kind of content be covered in English Grammar from about the fourth grade and up? How do they pass high school English Grammar to even make it into college, much less become teachers? It worries me. How can these people correct students when they make spelling or grammatical errors when they do the same thing themselves and apparently don't even realize it?
I won't approach this topic in the actual threads where I see it, because I would be accused of personally attacking someone, and that is not my intent, but honestly, what gives?
Ha ha ha this is mean, but I know where you are coming from. President Bush's pronunciation of "nuclear" as "new knew lur" still bothers me. It is wrong on so many levels.
The answer IMO is that people were never that well-educated to begin with. But now because of the internet, we can all directly interact and see just how dumb we all are.
One of my favorite quotes is by a Korean netizen commenting on something or other...I'll paraphrase: When I joined twitter, I learned that the world is full of idiots.
When I joined facebook, I learned that those idiots are my friends.
As I have perused the various state forums on C-D, I have come across many threads started by people who claim to be teachers in the various public school systems. Many of the threads concern potential for teaching positions in different states and cities, for example. What has jumped out at me so many, many times however, is not the actual content of the threads themselves, but the abominable grammar, capitalization, and spelling in some of these teacher-generated posts. Seriously, a junior high teacher who wants to find a good-paying job writes, "I don't want to loose my union benefits that I have here," or, "i am tired of living somewhere where its cold all the time," or, "There laying off teachers here now," or even, "I have went to alot of job fairs."
Wow. Someone please enlighten me. Is it that the colleges are passing people through who they shouldn't, and shouldn't this kind of content be covered in English Grammar from about the fourth grade and up? How do they pass high school English Grammar to even make it into college, much less become teachers? It worries me. How can these people correct students when they make spelling or grammatical errors when they do the same thing themselves and apparently don't even realize it?
I won't approach this topic in the actual threads where I see it, because I would be accused of personally attacking someone, and that is not my intent, but honestly, what gives?
I don't understand it either, and I'm a teacher. Sure, there may be some typos here on citydata, or typing from phones, which is no big deal, but I teach in a college and I've had k-12 teachers in my classroom who wouldn't pass our 5th grade writing standardized test. And some of them have degrees from respected local universities - another thing I don't understand. How do you get a degree in education when you can't construct a coherent paragraph? Of course, these people are not native speakers of English, but still....I don't need it to be perfect, but they should be able to write as well as a 5th grader.
I see the post is old, but really....the whole issue is hard to understand.
As I have perused the various state forums on C-D, I have come across many threads started by people who claim to be teachers in the various public school systems. Many of the threads concern potential for teaching positions in different states and cities, for example. What has jumped out at me so many, many times however, is not the actual content of the threads themselves, but the abominable grammar, capitalization, and spelling in some of these teacher-generated posts. Seriously, a junior high teacher who wants to find a good-paying job writes, "I don't want to loose my union benefits that I have here," or, "i am tired of living somewhere where its cold all the time," or, "There laying off teachers here now," or even, "I have went to alot of job fairs."
Wow. Someone please enlighten me. Is it that the colleges are passing people through who they shouldn't, and shouldn't this kind of content be covered in English Grammar from about the fourth grade and up? How do they pass high school English Grammar to even make it into college, much less become teachers? It worries me. How can these people correct students when they make spelling or grammatical errors when they do the same thing themselves and apparently don't even realize it?
I won't approach this topic in the actual threads where I see it, because I would be accused of personally attacking someone, and that is not my intent, but honestly, what gives?
What highschool grammar? West Coast schools, and some states on the East Coast don't teach grammar in HS or in grade school. California hasn't taught grammar in school since somewhere back in the first half of the 20th Century, if then. Too bad the OP isn't around anymore to participate in the discussion.
Ha ha ha this is mean, but I know where you are coming from. President Bush's pronunciation of "nuclear" as "new knew lur" still bothers me. It is wrong on so many levels.
LOL it bothered me when Jimmy Carter did it, too (Obviously I'm older than you are!) I chalked it up as a regional pronunciation.
Quote:
The answer IMO is that people were never that well-educated to begin with. But now because of the internet, we can all directly interact and see just how dumb we all are.
One of my favorite quotes is by a Korean netizen commenting on something or other...I'll paraphrase: When I joined twitter, I learned that the world is full of idiots. When I joined facebook, I learned that those idiots are my friends.
Very true.
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