Can we talk? . . . (page 9)

frankiespeakin

Scully,

I feel at a disadvantage because I don't know what grade we are talking about here, and the type of words mis spelled or grammar errors.

Scully

Middle school (grade 7 & 8), although I have heard similar complaints from parents with kids in lower and higher grades.

I'm starting to wonder whether this is a pervasive issue throughout the public school system.

frankiespeakin

7 & 8th, I know schools all depend on government grants, high test scores, and so forth for funding, so all kinds of politics will be invovled that we may not be aware of.

Scully

7 & 8th, I know schools all depend on government grants, high test scores, and so forth for funding, so all kinds of politics will be invovled that we may not be aware of.

That isn't how it works up here in The Great White North. Funding is provided on a per student basis, with special grants available for children with special needs (learning and developmental disabilities) so that extra teaching time is at the students' disposal if they need it.

If it were as you described, it would seem to be the politically advantageous thing to give students good grades to ensure better or more funding. To give a student good grades all term and then ding them with a lower grade on the report card seems to not work to the school's advantage (or the students' advantage) with that kind of operation.

hubert

Scully said:

I feel that this is patently unfair to the students: to disregard spelling and grammatical errors on hand-written assignments, and yet use the School Board's standards regarding spelling and grammar for a report card mark. To me, it says that the teacher is not doing his or her job, because (a) they do not have control of the classroom environment,

When my granddaughter (sp)? was either in the second or third grade and starting to write pretty fairly, she and her class were told to write a story and basically not to worry about how they mispelled anything. I was kind of shocked when I read it, because it was full of misspelled words, of course. Then I realized the teacher did this, to get them to just learn to write down a story without the worry about misspelled words, punctuation, etc. It was just for the sake of being creative. This teacher made these kids read and write. She pushed them hard, and later, she added the spelling and punctuation parts into the teaching.

So, in her case, I don't thing she was being "lazy", I think she just wanted the kids to be creative.

Hubert

frankiespeakin

Then I guess it is just this particular teachers outlook that we have here, on what will best help thier students, or perhaps thier career.

hubert

Then I guess it is just this particular teachers outlook that we have here, on what will best help thier students, or perhaps thier career.

I agree, Frankie. Later in the year, these kids were doing book reports !!

Scully, It's awful to think that 7th and 8th graders are being taught not to worry about grammar. I feel like you, that grammar is very important to their future career status.

I sure wish I was real good at composition, but alas, it's too late for me.

Hubert

Scully

hubert:

Scully, It's awful to think that 7th and 8th graders are being taught not to worry about grammar. I feel like you, that grammar is very important to their future career status.

What frustrates me to no end is when the teachers do not expect correct grammar and spelling in creative writing assignments. They only want the students to focus on those skills when they are being tested on them.

Language is such an integral part of life and communication - it just seems that creative writing would be an arena where students could pull all those skills together instead of compartmentalising them: Friday is vocabulary/spelling test day; Wednesday is grammar day; Tuesday is reading quietly day; Monday is reading in groups day; Thursday is creative writing day. It's ALL ENGLISH, people!!!

*sigh* Is it really too much to ask? Or is this another by-product of the "what R U making 4 dinner?" text message era??

exwitless

To me, it says that the teacher is not doing his or her job, because (a) they do not have control of the classroom environment, (b) they want to be "friends" with the students, rather than an authority figure that expects a certain level of performance, (c) they do not want to put the effort into actually teaching children to write and speak correctly.

I wholeheartedly agree! I dispise this type of teaching, which is so prevalent these days. In my son's school, everyone gets an award at the end of the year; I mean everyone. They are hollow, meaningless awards, like "Problem Solver" or "Friendship Award"; no child is allowed to be singled out for an actual well-deserved award because they wouldn't want any child to be "better" than any other child.

The whole idea of injuring a child's self-esteem by correcting spelling errors is rediculous. Gee, in the real world, who has a boss who won't point out errors in your work because your feelings might get hurt? In my opinion, not helping a child to spell and write correctly will only with certainty hurt him or her as an adult. In the real world, employers won't feel sorry for you if you misspelled words all over your application. They won't think, "well, his teachers probably didn't want to hurt his feelings by telling him that his spelling is bad, so we won't hold that against him now." In the long run, our kids will only suffer negatively from this style of supposed self-esteem-sparing teaching.

Narkissos

Excesses happen (here also), but I think that separating formal and normative skills (like spelling and grammar) from creativity and imagination is not a bad idea, especially in primary school (my daughter is 9, not sure what grade it corresponds to in the American system, but it works this way too). I feel the older system (when I was in school 40 years ago) which ranked everybody on a single scale with the grammar and math nerd on the top (I used to be there) was actually unfair to all, as the creative "dunce" was constantly discouraged and the schoolish type didn't see the need to work on other skills. As a result the saying which makes grammar and spelling "the science of the dumb" is very popular here, even though shortsighted.

Can we talk? . . .

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