Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Seriously though, there is some truth in the principles statement; we're increasingly a purely digitally based writing system.
I really can't for the life of me remember handwriting anything in my college days or in my career. Everything used word processing programs or had some type of de facto spell check running in the background.
Even this post caught my (unintentional) typos/spelling errors.
You did all your math classes with a word processor ?
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.
Your children are lucky! We need more teachers who think like you!!
Do schools even offer Latin as a language anymore?
While many think it's useless, I credit my Latin classes with making me a better speller and better at understanding words....especially in science.
We do not offer it, and I teach kids that many would consider should not waste their time learning languages, as they are not core skills (special ed). But since I do reading instruction, I am FOREVER helping them make vocabulary connections using the Latin roots of common words. It's very useful, and they find it interesting.
Studying Latin even in a rudimentary manner is definitely useful in progressing in English skills.
We do not offer it, and I teach kids that many would consider should not waste their time learning languages, as they are not core skills (special ed). But since I do reading instruction, I am FOREVER helping them make vocabulary connections using the Latin roots of common words. It's very useful, and they find it interesting.
Studying Latin even in a rudimentary manner is definitely useful in progressing in English skills.
A friend of mine who is also a sped teacher once told me that he was a horrible speller all thru school but he took a class in college of Greek and Latin roots and he got much better. He had mild LD and ADHD already and then had some kind of medical issue with his brain in high school and it still really helped. My students actually found it interesting when I pointed out that when you see the -ph- in word, it means it's of Greek origin.
This also came in handy when I worked with ELL students b/c I had a lot of Hispanic kids and I could help them make the connections to their own language, esp with the science and govt vocab, the two hardest classes for those kids. I told them they actually had an advantage b/c of this and if they got stuck on a vocab word I'd ask them what the word means in Spanish and it would almost always be the same or close, at least for science vocab.
I am with you OP. My kids had spelling tests all through elementary school, so this is news to me. If they don't learn to spell in grade school, then when?
My son's status on FB last night was addressed to Spellcheck, along the lines of "Dear Spellcheck, by now you should have noticed those meticulously spelled scientific terms just might mean I'm a science major. Please stop auto-correcting them". He got dozens of likes for the comment.
You should tell your son that autocorrect is an adaptive piece of software and if he pressed the little x next to the word, autocorrect would learn that words spelling.
Momzuki, your instinct was correct. learning to spell is one of the foundations of learning to READ.
Momzuki, yuor isnticnt was inrcorect. Laernnig to sepll is not fuondatoion of laernnig to raed. Getting the first and last letters of a word right is the key. Letters in the middle are not important, you can read and understand grossly misspelled words as long as the first and the last letters are what they should be.
Momzuki, yuor isnticnt was inrcorect. Laernnig to sepll is not fuondatoion of laernnig to raed. Getting the first and last letters of a word right is the key. Letters in the middle are not important, you can read and understand grossly misspelled words as long as the first and the last letters are what they should be.
Well see how far up the management chain you get in your career when you sent out not only misspelled words but incorrect words that spellchecks don't check.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
