Fed up, decided to homeschool this year - principal said "kids can just use spellcheck" (universities, private schools)

[Kreutz]

Originally Posted by HappyTexan

That's the mediocrity that schools are teaching.
We should not settle for that.

Other countries don't and in this global economy the US will be left behind.

The current (and future) global economy is already highly digitally driven; things like spelling and handwriting are already on the cusp of being if not obsolete, at least increasingly irrelevant.

I have to read a lot of reports in electronic medical records written by foreign doctors practicing in the US; the spelling and grammar is uh, "interesting", yet they practice medicine here and still communicate fine. My boss is a self-made millionaire and often communicates to me in Twitter-ese.

Such is the way of things.

I would say in order to be more competitive we need to drop this idea that the 20th century baby boomer era education matters in the 21st century.

[suzy_q2010]

Originally Posted by Kreutz

And yet...my words still conveyed their intended meaning, and thus were communicated effectively.

Thanks for proving my point.

In fakt u kan spehl prutty mucch howevahr u wunt and stil b undurstoud.

The truth is outside of internet message boards grammar and spell check nazis such as yourself do not exist, and yet society has not degenerated into grunts and gestures.

Go figure.

The SAT now has three sections, including writing. Do you think that an essay filled with spelling and grammar errors will fetch a high score? How about the essay that is submitted with the college application?

Does Spelling Count? - Jessica Lahey - The Atlantic

How about resumes? What do spelling and grammar mistakes say about a potential employee? The spell check Nazis here have day jobs, too. Many of them are in positions in which they read those resumes. Given two employee applicants with similar education and experience, which would you hire: someone who can spell or someone who cannot?

Your misspelled statement can be understood. In fact, you can just omit all the vowels and still be understood. But it is more difficult to read, and I suspect none of us would want to read an entire textbook that ignored spelling conventions. It would be exhausting.

Ultimately, misspellings and bad grammar can lead to situations where communication fails.

There is a difference between "eats shoots and leaves" and "eats, shoots, and leaves".

[villageidiot1]

This is an interesting discussion. It points out that everything we do in education could and should be challenged. The trouble is it seems like many of the changes are counterproductive. There seems to be a school of thought that memorization is bad. Therefore, students don't have to memorize anything and they are expected to learn concepts. I find this to be true with spelling, multiplication tables, science, history, etc. There is also much less focus on reading textbooks today. The more intelligent kids do well regardless of the education system because they want to learn. The average and below average kids are the ones who are being short-changed. They are the ones who struggle with algebra because they can't do multiplication and who struggle with writing because they don't understand grammar.

Back in the 1960s, I had weekly spelling tests through 8th grade. Out weekly spelling lists also included looking up the definition and being able to define the word. This is all part of the foundation that is necessary for future learning and understanding.

Originally Posted by HappyTexan

Spelling is not on the standardized tests therefore it's not important.
I say it tongue in cheek but it's the truth.

Teach to the test, nothing more.

I agree. I think this is the only reason for not teaching spelling.

Originally Posted by plmokn

Kids should be introduced to Excel in first or second grade before spelling tests. And, in addition to that and math, simple financial management (yes, even in 2nd grade), health, and PE, and science.

Cut out art and social studies and literature. Yes, PE is more important than literature social studies and art.

I even question government authored history classes.

What purpose does it serve to introduce Excel in first or second grade? I taught myself how to use spreadsheets because I had a reason to use one. I doubt many 1st or 2nd graders have a need for a spreadsheet program. They need to focus on basic arithmetic. Too many kids get to middle school who are not proficient in addition and subtraction.

What should be cut out of schools are any type of poster or art project in a subject other than art class. Any type of group project also falls in this category. These projects are the biggest joke. The reason for these projects is to have tangible examples of school work to hang on the walls to make it look like actual learning is taking place. Much classroom time is wasted especially on the group projects. Many of them boil down to a Google image search in order to glue pictures to a poster board and then the poster is presented to the class with little understanding of the topic. Especially with younger students, it is obvious whose parents spent money on art supplies and did most of the work.

Originally Posted by HappyTexan

The tools are becoming the crutches.

Calculators, spell check, computers vs paper & pencil.

Cursive is gone and block writing is horrible.
Kids don't do research in libraries anymore; it's all google now.

They can't seem to fit in 7.5 hours what I was learning in 5 hours back in the 60/70's (9-3 with 1 hour lunch)

I agree. I subbed for a 3rd grade class where the kids had electronic spell checkers. What ever happened to using a dictionary? Dictionaries will become obsolete like the old encyclopedias.

We were able to go home for lunch and had a 90 minute lunch break. We did not have a lot of wasted time in school. We did not have daily recess. We did not change class for specials. It was not unusual for a teacher to spend all morning on math if students were having difficulty.

Originally Posted by Kayekaye

Phonetic spelling is crucial
Memorizing math tables is crucial
Writing is crucial
End of story.

No wonder other countries lead in math and science.

I agree. Some memorization is good for the brain. I'm not great at memorization but I still remember things I memorized almost 50 years ago.

I can't think of a reason that calculators should be allowed in schools before middle school.

[convextech]

Originally Posted by toobusytoday

I thought their comment made the point better then my fixing it.

"then" should be "than". If you folks are going to correct people, at least be correct in your own posts.

[Momzuki]

Originally Posted by marie5v

But word study is NOT phonetic spelling. It is just explicitly teaching the spelling patterns to groups of children at a certain spelling level, instead of teaching one list of somewhat random words at a time to everyone. There are still lists and tests, and it IS phonics. It's just not called phonics. And it's got a bit of self directed learning in it compared to traditional phonics.

I think that you read the comment about whole language and thought that the person was confusing or combining whole language and word study. I think the whole language comment was in response to an earlier comment and it had nothing to do with word study.

Word study does not necessarily include lists and tests and it does not teach irregular spelling.

There are no tests for the word study done in our schools. I verified this with the curriculum director. No teachers are supposed to be giving tests on spelling. I know that some are breaking the rules and giving tests anyway.

There apparently is some sort of list, perhaps, but I as a parent am not allowed to know the list. I'm serious - I could not get a list each week of what words they would be working on.

Word study is not proven effective at teaching spelling. There are no well done studies to back up the assertions that it is.

[toobusytoday]

Originally Posted by convextech

"then" should be "than". If you folks are going to correct people, at least be correct in your own posts.

You know, that's one word I ALWAYS mix up. How do you remember which one to use? I apologize for any cringing that induced!

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady

My husband once had a customer who would come in often who was an older gentleman educated in England. They had a running competition going. When the gentleman would pick up his work (it was a printing company), the bill would sometimes be complicated due to multiple jobs of different runs, some having been bound, some not, some one-sided, some two-sided. My husband, who was very fast at this, would figure the bill with the calculator. The gentleman would do it in his head. The gentleman ALWAYS got the correct answer before the calculator did, because he was taught in school how to do math and how to do it accurately in his head.

Turning our brains over to machines is a mistake. The machines should be the tools of our brain, not the crutches.

Some of us would not be able to do that calculation in our heads and we too were taught in school how to do math and how to do it in our heads, even if we weren't educated in England.

[Momzuki]

Originally Posted by Kreutz

The current (and future) global economy is already highly digitally driven; things like spelling and handwriting are already on the cusp of being if not obsolete, at least increasingly irrelevant.

I have to read a lot of reports in electronic medical records written by foreign doctors practicing in the US; the spelling and grammar is uh, "interesting", yet they practice medicine here and still communicate fine. My boss is a self-made millionaire and often communicates to me in Twitter-ese.

Such is the way of things.

I would say in order to be more competitive we need to drop this idea that the 20th century baby boomer era education matters in the 21st century.

Let me rephrase what I am hearing you say:
1. "You are all dinosaurs, you people who can spell and think people should be able to spell." (appeal to novelty, appeal to ridicule)
2. "I do not value spelling or handwriting and I do not use them, therefore in the future spelling and handwriting will be obsolete. I will use a poorly worded catch phrase in place of actual evidence of my assertion" (biased sample, appeal to emotion, authority)
3. "People with medical degrees, who speak English as a second language, can get away with poor spelling and grammar. Therefore, spelling is unimportant." (biased sample, appeal to common practice)
4. "My boss is rich, and gets away with poor communication skills. Therefore, communication skills are unimportant." (biased sample, appeal to common practice)
5. "My ideas are that we should forget about all the ways of education that have proven effective in the past, and we should embrace all of the recent ideas that have repeatedly proven themselves ineffective. I do not have evidence to back up my ideas, so if someone disagrees with me I will call them a dinosaur." (appeal to novelty, appeal to ridicule)

I do not want to make fun of you or be cruel. I have done my best to truly clarify the arguments you presented. There are more problems, but I stopped at the most basic. It is very difficult to understand where one's own education is lacking. The saying is, "You don't know what you don't know." Your assertions and conclusions are riddled with logical fallacies, as I have noted. Experiences like this are why I view poor spelling as a clearly identifiable symptom of an inadequate education.

I was also publicly educated, but as an adult I realized at least some of what my education lacked, and I have attempted to remedy my educational deficiencies.

This is what the entire issue boils down to for me at this point: Other people may accept an inferior education. I will not accept an inferior education for my children. If others want help obtaining a better education, I will help.

[Momzuki]

Originally Posted by toobusytoday

You know, that's one word I ALWAYS mix up. How do you remember which one to use? I apologize for any cringing that induced!

I like "The Oatmeal" for entertaining explanations of this kind of thing:

10 Words You Need to Stop Misspelling - The Oatmeal

[Bludy-L]

Originally Posted by toobusytoday

You know, that's one word I ALWAYS mix up. How do you remember which one to use? I apologize for any cringing that induced!

"Then" involves a timeframe.

" Than" involves a comparison



Posted with TapaTalk