*facepalm*

[textualdeviance]

I believe I have discovered how kids are failing to learn proper English.

Here's the sad beginning of an e-mail I just got from a kindergarten teacher:

Actually it has been a long time since anyone has come to my class that has not been to preschool. So kindergarten is usually is not there first experience.

The rest of the mail is just as bad, with improper use of parentheses and egregious abuse of ellipses.

Meh. I give up.


ETA: This reminds me that I meant to link this.

It's a damn shame the guy had to go all technophobic (and I sent him a rather pointed e-mail to that effect) because the rest of his point is solid, and worth paying attention to.

Comments

[miss-swamp.livejournal.com]

That teacher is not alone her poor writing skills, alas. Most of our staff would use there/they're correctly, but apostrophes are incomprehensible to at about 1/4 of them. My principal has me proofread everything she sends out, because I'm considered the "picky" one. When I discover other teachers' mistakes, I'm always torn: correcting them seems impolite, but it's a matter of also professional accountability.

*sigh* This is why people think teachers are stupid. I can't say I blame them, but most of us know what we're doing. Honest.

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

I don't doubt that there are plenty of teachers who just don't care, but I also wonder whether there's a bigger problem brewing. The article I just added to my post talks about slipping grading standards. Kids who can't pass standardized tests are somehow getting high graduating GPAs. I wonder if this is a matter of pressure to get kids into college--whether they're qualified to go or not--or just a steady decline in overall standards. Perhaps it's an aversion to holding kids back a grade, even when they clearly need the extra class time. Do you guys get pressured by administrators to push kids through before they're ready?

I think it's fair enough to graduate a student with marginal language skills, but to give them a high GPA just seems silly to me. It's not just language, either. A while back, I made a post about how one of my fellow students at Western had no idea what a bill is, much less the process of how one becomes law. I wonder how a student like that ever managed to get into a school that had a minimum 3.6 GPA for incoming freshmen last year.