Oh, Crap. An English Teacher Who Can’t Spell
It’s times like these that I seriously have to wonder what the hell my profession’s coming to. As many folks know, I’m both a teacher and a homeschooler, which is sort of like being a meat-eating vegan or a talented version of Lindsay Lohan: not really a paradox so much as an utter contradiction in terms.
One of the reasons we homeschool is that I strongly suspect — no, I know — that I would be One Of Those Parents. Teachers know what kind I mean: the kind of parent who returns the classroom newsletter with every typo “helpfully” circled.
I admit that I don’t have a heck of a lot of respect for teachers who don’t know what the heck they’re talking about. I’m not talking about American history teachers with a slim grasp of calculus (or calculus teachers with a slim grasp of American history). I’m not expecting a kid’s P.E. teacher to know who wrote Man and Superman.
I do think it’s reasonable, though, that an English teacher should know how to spell.
I got an email fairly recently from Local University asking for a placement for their student teacher to observe in a classroom. Sure, I thought. No biggie — it’s part of teaching karma: someone opened up her class to me; I need to extend the same courtesy to others who are getting in the game. Hopefully, I won’t be an example of what NOT to do. I agreed, and fairly soon thereafter, I got an email from this student teacher whom I’ll nickname Pat. The following is a somewhat fictionalized version of the actual email exchange — fictionalized only because (of course) Pat has not given her or his permission for me to publish the real email that was sent to me. Sorry for the truthiness.
Hi Mr. /Ms. Melk,
My name is Pat and I’m in the education program at Local University to be an English teacher. Would it be alright if I came to your class Monday and Tuesday to watch, I have alot of hour’s to finish observing for my student teaching class. Would it be alright with you?
Pat
Dear Pat,
Of course it would be all right. Monday would be all right, and Tuesday would be all right too. In fact, either or both would be all right with me; I understand completing one’s hours can sometimes be challenging.
Thanks,
Adso Melk
Mrs./Mr. Melk,
Thanks alot. Ill be in on Monday and Tuesday.
Subsequent exchanges did not improve the situation. Pat has an alright problem, an alot problem, and can’t successfully or consistently differentiate among there, their, and they’re.
This genuinely bothers me. Pat seems like a friendly person, sure, the kind of person you wouldn’t mind sharing a cold one with at a barbecue. However, I have to sit and scratch my head and wonder why in blue blazes Pat wants to be an English teacher if s/he can’t, well, do English.
My child just saw Pat’s letter over my shoulder and said, “You didn’t need an apostrophe.” When I mentioned that I was quoting someone else, the child said, “They don’t write particularly well.”
Yes. You got that right. Go to the head of the class for that one.
Ouch! I look forward to hearing of your further adventures with Pat….
Whoa! I dont concider miself to be a partikularly goodly speler, but I DID catch all of them erors. I all ways tell my students that Im a poor speler, so they take it up on themselfs to make sure two correct any possible misteaks. My spelling has improvd drastikaly in the last ten yeares.
Ha, ha, Mr. W…very funny. Hey, I’m by no means perfect myself — a student corrected me by pointing out that all of my “mandantory” assignments really needed to be “mandatory.” I wish she’d done it, oh, in the first week of class rather than the eighteenth, but suffice it to say that’s a word I never misspelled again!
I just have to ask myself, though, why is it that Pat wants to be an English teacher if s/he can’t really spell and doesn’t really seem to have a feel for the language? Does he/she think that English is easy, somehow?
I did show her/him (herm?) my enormous Everest of research papers I still have to grade.
I try to be sympathetic with e-mails, blog posts, and the like, knowing that they are often tossed off, but when you see the errors repeatedly . . . and in a professional setting . . .
I remember touring Kindergarten classrooms — everything else could have been perfect about this class, but I really struggled to get past the spelling of “raisen” as an example of an “R” food. It was my parish school, so though we didn’t attend I did see that it was up on the wall all year. Ack!
I should confess, however, that one of my freshman once busted me for saying “like” too often, Not good!
Eek!
I’m preparing to graduate from college with a B.A. in English and I’m surprised at my Doctorate-level professors who can’t spell! How does that HAPPEN?
It’s no excuse, but I have to say that my off-the-cuff spelling got worse while I was teaching college. I think I was seeing so many “variant” spellings from student papers that the actual spelling was no longer firm in my brain. Also, everything moves so fast now — people fly through what they are writing or typing, and rarely have time to proofread. Again, not a good-enough excuse but perhaps a partial explanation.
Most people working to become English teachers would probably reconsider if they were to fully understand the quantity of work and requires expertise before graduation. There may be an obvious shortage of teachers in math and science, but a really good HS English teacher is tough to find. Even teachers who I think could be great just won’t devote the necessary time and effort needed to teach the skillls of writing.
Teaching English has many unseen burdens when compared to other subjects.
[...] Education, hosted by Mr. D of I Want To Teach Forever, Lorem Ipsum shares a letter from a would-be English Teacher Who Can’t Spell. My name is Pat and I’m in the education program at Local University to be an English teacher. [...]
Carnival of Education at Joanne Jacobs said this on April 2, 2008 at 1:10 pm |
My daughter used to bring home communications from her teachers and principals already marked up with red pen. Her high school principal’s letters in particular were awful. They got better abruptly – I suppose one of the teachers or office personnel put their foot down.
In middle school one day she blurted out to me, “Commas: You get ‘em or you don’t.” I told her I thought she was right. Seriously, there seems to be a divide between people who can spell, punctuate, and put together a coherent sentence, and people who can’t. It correlates somewhat with intelligence but not totally.
Did you try reteaching Pat? I think I couldn’t have helped it even though it would not be my function.
I do believe that spelling is something that one “gets” intuitively or does not. But, if one knows that they are of the “doesn’t get it” variety–and are choosing education as their field, they need to become conversant with spell-check (I know it isn’t perfect–but it helps), grammar-check, or the good old fashioned ask a friend/colleague to proof read.
I do cringe when the PE teacher, or bus driver sends home an illiterate note; but even the science, math and social studies teachers should be able to construct a sentence with appropriate punctuation and capitalization. I lay the fault at 1) the universities who view teacher education as a “cash cow” program (anyone gets in, low cost to administer) and 2) uninvolved administrators who don’t demand a certain level of decorum in communications that go out to the publc
The daily bulletin at our high school continually sets my teeth on edge, as it is filled with inappropriate use of apostrophes, subject-verb agreement errors, and incorrect use of their/there/they’re.
it wasn’t just the spelling, peeps. as the child pointed out, it was also poorly written.
i interviewed many education students over the last decade, and i was stunned by their poor spelling, writing, and articulation. i gave a talk to a classroom of elementary ed. majors and started by saying “Most of you are mediocre.” most of the class was offended. i assume the three who were laughing hard were the good ones.
Laura(southernxyl), that “something” is grammar. Either you understand how parts of speech relate to one another in phrases, clauses, and sentences, or you don’t. If you don’t, it is at least partly the fault of your elementary school and junior high teachers, who likely didn’t understand it themselves.
Devilbuny, I grew up in a very small town in Mississippi. We had two elementary schools but one middle and one high school. After elementary school we all had the same English teachers. Still, some of us got it and some didn’t. I remember wondering why we did the same dreary worksheets year after year, putting commas into sentences and so forth, and why some of my classmates NEVER COULD get it.
My senior English teacher thought that “Lord” was Tennyson’s middle name – you know, “Alfred, Lord Tennyson”? She called him “Alfred Lord”. I knew that was wrong.
The mayor of Memphis, where I lived for 25 years, and who was superintendent of schools before, is concerned about bringing in superintendents from outside the city. Here is a direct quote from a letter he wrote to the school board, expressing his concern about the selection process: “In my opinion, the selection of outsiders typically lack strong commitments to our community and our children.” The man has a PhD. I wouldn’t write a sentence like that, with a high fever, in pencil on a post-it note.
Laura, you asked, “Did you try reteaching Pat? I think I couldn’t have helped it even though it would not be my function.” I’m normally not a tactful person; I’m way better at bluntness, actually, and the closest I felt I could come and still be on the polite side was just repeatedly writing his/her misspelled word the correct way. Hey, normally, it would not be a great big deal if Pat couldn’t spell if she were going into any other field but education and nearly any other area of education but English.
“My senior English teacher thought that ‘Lord’ was Tennyson’s middle name – you know, ‘Alfred, Lord Tennyson’? She called him ‘Alfred Lord.’ I knew that was wrong.”
Oh, ouch. Ow, ow, ow….
[...] at Unimpressive Local University, I was surrounded by students and professors who were a great deal like my observer Pat. These people weren’t evil, weren’t scheming, weren’t “bad” in any [...]
Why Gifted Students Still Hate School, Part II « Lorem Ipsum said this on April 5, 2008 at 1:01 pm |
In the interest of fairness, “alright” is viewed by many writers as an acceptable variant. I don’t like it, but there it is. Please see the usage discussion in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.). That said, I write and edit for a living, and I believe that most language professionals would do well to be conservative in their correspondence. Of course, the “hour’s” and the comma splice in Pat’s letter would have been sufficient for me to circular-file this future teacher’s request. You’d be astonished at the vast number of job applications I’ve received from so-called editors that have merited that treatment.