Is spelling old fashioned?

[OneOfOne]

I saw something on TV last night about spelling. One comment really made me shake my head, that spelling is old fashioned and has been surpassed by technology. What the...?

Isn't it bad enough that we have a generation that can't add up, ask them to buy the milk (~$3) and bread (~$3) and they need a $20 just in case $10 isn't enough! And whoa if you give them a 5 and some gold. I am always amazed at the looks I get when I give a cash register attendent some notes and odd change for a purchase, and then even more amazement when they give me one note and a coin change.

I don't have a problem with people making the odd typo and letting it slip through a quick proof read, but some people just can't spell. I don't believe spelling can ever be "old fashioned", if you spell a word wrong and the person at the other end can't spell either and spells the word differently, how do you know they "heard" what you "said"! Imagine signing a legal agreement that is full of typos, or interpreting a will.... I know there a number of people even on this forum who's spelling is atrocious and they make me shake my head at time, or a bit of a giggle.

Even the standards of plain English grammar are becoming almost non existent. My pet peeve is "then" and "than"....both words mean completely different things people!, their similar spelling is the ONLY thing they have in common. "Then" is a temporaral reference, "I will do this THEN I will do that". "Than" is a comparative reference, "this is bigger THAN that". "This is bigger then that"....then what?...."This is bigger then...I will go home?" To and too is the other pair. "I go TO work with you TOO (also)" or "These pants are TOO (excessively) big for me".

I think they should spend at least some part of education teaching the things that people just have to KNOW, you can find out what 1345*3453 is, but you should know 6 * 5 = 30, and having commited this to memory you can easily find out what 5 * 6 is.

Well, enough of a rave...time to get back to werk!

[Octane]

Wot r u tlkn bowt

[Omaroo]

Is spelling "old fashioned"? It better not be! Is caring about it old fashioned? That's probably more the question you're asking.

Firstly, if anyone gets upset over the question being asked, then I think that's a bit silly. It's a perfectly valid discussion topic. You didn't ask why someone can or cannot spell - you asked whether it was still important to think it is relevant to our modern life.

Spelling and correct grammar (not "grammer" ;) ) are THE backbone of our language. Without them we'll sink into linguistic anarchy, plain and simple. Correct practise and observation of these fundamentals are the only way we can reliably communicate with each other using a standard method. Yes, spelling changes over time as our language evolves to accomodate new events, inventions and the like, but in this case everyone should then endeavour to use the same accepted spelling for any particular word at that time. Technology should improve our ability to communicate using this standard, not dilute it.

Those that can't spell, I can understand - there are quite a number of words to remember and we all forget from time to time. Being able to spell correctly the whole time is not a measure of intelligence - it is a measure of care. I look up my dictionary regularly as do most people who care about our language. Those that can't spell and really think it's unnecessary - I'm sorry, but I don't get your mindset. :shrug: Do you just not wish to communicate properly?

Grammar is just as, if not more, important than spelling. It's the way we use and place our words to define our message in a sentence to ensure its (note: no apostrophe in "its" in this case - we are not saying "it is" or "it has") context correctly. Without grammatical control the real message is lost and is then open to misinterpretation.

Try inserting some purposeful spelling mistakes in your next line of computer code some time, and see where that gets you if you think it's unimportant... LOL! :) I guess that being in the advertising game, it's too important to get wrong. If we design a campaign and spell something incorrectly in a $six figure newspaper or magazine ad, it reflects badly on the customer. Chalk up one lost client....

[koputai]

I'm with you Trev. I'm a bit of a pedant when it comes to correct
spelling, grammar (please note the spelling Trev!), and punctuation.
This 'than' and 'then' confusion that has been increasing over the
last couple of years has really flabbergasted me. Even people I know
who are highly intelligent have been known to confuse the two. I simply
can't understand how the two can be confused at all. The other old
chestnut that keeps popping up, quite regularly on IIS, is the 'bought'
versus 'brought', as in, "I went to the shop and brought a new scope".
Aaaaarrrrrggghhhhhh!!!!

Anyhow, cul8r
Jason.

[astroron]

Trevor , you have opened a can of worms:rolleyes:
I was attacked on this forum earlier this year on this very subject:( even though I did not complain about peoples spelling.
Good Luck:thumbsup:

[Mike21]

I'm chiming in on this one too. My father once looked at a primary school composition of mine and said "Don't you get taught how to spell". He added a few adjectives that the moderator would not approve of on IIS. I looked at him blankly and he asked me why we were not taught spelling or grammAr. I relayed the question to my sixth class teacher. She told me that it was all about freedom of speech. I relayed that to my father, to which he replied "How the (moderator) can you speak freely if you cannot (moderator) speak properly in the first place". Of course his actual manner of speaking was again a little too forceful for the moderators, but I have obviously remembered the occassion quite clearly.

[FredSnerd]

OK

I'm out of step here and i know I'm gonna get shouted down but what the heck.

Yeah I agree that spelling is old fashioned and the sooner we get rid of the notion the better and really if your only argument for it is well thats the way i was brought up, its not good enough I'm affraid. The world changes.

I think there should only be one rule of spelling and grammer. Just one rule. Its the writers responsibility to make themselves understood. Thats all. No rights and wrongs about how you say something Just say it so people understand you. And if they dont you've failed.

I wonder if I'll have any friends on this thread after this. I hope so.

Regards

[AstralTraveller]

Sorry, I don't understand you. :P

[renormalised]

They haven't required kids at school to undertake spelling lessons and tests for years. It's a crime, actually. We've brought up several (school) generations of people who can't read and write properly. I've seen the results of this at Uni. How anyone could get into an University not having the basic skills of reading and writing mastered to the extent that they can undertake a degree course, beggars belief in my opinion. Although, it's understandable when you consider that their teachers at school could barely accomplish reading and writing themselves. It's all because of these trendy, "socially progressive" academics (mostly in the U.S., as this is where most of the ideas have come from) who sit on their backside in their little ivory towers, dreaming up schemes to "enrich" and "empower" the student's school lives. To expand on their "creative" abilities and allow them to "find their own place" in the world. Most have never seen anything resembling reality as they've been cooped up in their strange worlds inside their offices, dreaming up seriously warped ideas about how everyone else should conduct their lives and their learning. Then everything gets adopted by the usual idiots...politicians...and everything goes out the window. Anyway, regardless of their degrees, most politicians have had poor educations. Apart from their specialisation at Uni, most would know "JS" about anything else. That's when they get "experts" to advise them, and they know even less!!.

No wonder the world is dysfunctional.

[FredSnerd]

David i wondered how long it would take for someone to post a reply like this. Not long at all. Good. I believe it means that you did in fact understand me.
All the best

[Fossil]

I have three children, now adults, and they were taught to spell phonetically at school. I asked the teacher about this and was advised that they will learn to spell correctly later in life. This never happened, and I have seen all of the above examples in their writings.
Politicians are now trying to work out why schools are doing so poorly, and their bright idea (to get themselves off the hook) is to 'dumb down' exams so everyone gets better results.

[Fossil]

And here is why you cannot trust your spell checker!

I have a spelling chequer,
It came with my pea sea,
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye cannot sea.

When eye strike a quay, right a word,
I weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar wright
It shows me strait aweigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
I nose bee fore two late
And eye can put the error rite
Its rarely, rarely grate.

I've run this poem threw it
I'm shore your pleased two no,
Its letter perfect in it's weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.

[bojan]

It is amazing how deep this political correctness took roots in our everyday thinking and actioning...

I understand very well the difficulties people from other than English language speaking backgrounds could have (there are some European languages that do not require spelling like English.. mine own included).. but this of course can not be an excuse for basic inability to use English language as it is, here in Australia..
So, I am with you here, 147%.
And I am always trying my best to have my spelling and grammar correct... sometimes I am successful, sometimes not.. but at least I am trying.

[avandonk]

I am petrified if I make a post with incorrect spelling. Why is this do you ask? It is because it shows a lack of attention to detail and/or an appalling lack of correctness. I prefer to put it down to our societies complete lack of responsibility rather than any teachers lack of ability for the current 'woeful' state of spelling.

I have tried to communicate with my younger nieces and nephews and their response is cryptic at best unintelligible at worst.

We can only blame ourselves when we see this appalling behaviour as they got it from us!

Bert

[Screwdriverone]

Ha HA!,

Jeez you are getting hammered on the "grammer" mistake Trevor, I was going to point that out but was beaten to it by at least 4 people.

I personally hate bad spelling, being a pedagogue myself and something that I found out recently is that the NSW state high schools are now offering Maths as an OPTIONAL subject in Year 11 & 12. Whilst this sounds very forward thinking in their marketing sound bites when they say "most students don't require maths in their professional careers or as a pre-requisite to enter a University Course" it seems to me there will be a generation ZZ which will be handing over the incorrect change and over or undercharging us at McDonald's etc for a long time to come....

Possibly great as a windfall for us who can add up in our heads, but sooner or later we'll all be stuffed.

I find it ironic that my eldest who is going into Yr11 next year can't do maths very well with respect to simple arithmetic at the shops or in life, but can easily tell me how may 50 calibre bullets he emptied into an enemy and explain the rate of fire of his off-hand weapon when smashing me into the ground if I attempt to play Halo 3 with him.:confused:

Oh well, at least I will be able to rip him off when he has to look after me in my retirement.......hang on, maybe he will still be living at home by then....bugger!

Oh, and DON'T get me started on incorrect placement or bad spelling when it comes to apostrophes and plurals! e.g. mangoe's AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGG GGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Cheers

Chris

[AdrianF]

It never ceases to amaze me concerning the ability, or should I say lack of ability, for students to spell.
I teach engineering at the TAFE in Roma and most of my apprentices are either illiterate or cannot spell very well, how they manage to get through High School to a year 12 level without being able to spell or even read is beyond me.
One example is the word acetylene ok not a word in common household use ...but as a budding Engineer (Tradesperson) they should know the word and its spelling not assetileen, I get that often. I am not an English teacher and I shouldn't have to spend time deciphering the phonetical way young adults(?) spell.

There thats my rant for the day.....

Adrian

[Omaroo]

Quite. What could a mango (or is that mongoe? LOL!) possibly own?

[GeoffW1]

Oh Dear,

"whose" you mean.

You have to be soooo careful when posting on this subject. I like to spell properly myself and am always irritated when I trip over my own vocabulary. However it is a personal thing.

What is the purpose of language? Communication. So if you communicate effectively but with spelling errors is that a worry? Possibly not. I dunno any more.

Cheers

[Robh]

This is part of a larger trend away from factual memorisation (e.g. rote learning) towards freedom of expression and creativity.

Children today quite often do not learn their times tables or for that matter memorise totals for simple addition combinations like 8+5 or 5+8.
There is no emphasis on correct spelling.
They aren't taught the syntax of grammar and don't have a clue when to use a comma, colon or semi-colon. They don't even know when to begin a new paragraph.
They aren't required to learn basic mathematical or scientific formulae and are usually given all the necessary formulae as part of the exam paper.
And their geographical knowledge is lacking.

The end result. Nobody puts anything to memory anymore and the brain is under-trained. Many people find it hard to even remember their mobile phone numbers.

Regards, Rob.

[renormalised]

You've got to be kidding me, Chris!!!! What next:rolleyes::rolleyes::eyepop:

I suppose you don't need maths to enter Uni to do a course in physics, or applied mathematics, engineering, or any other of the physical sciences. Oh yeah, that's right, all the new students entering Uni from now on will be doing arts majors and education<sarcasm inserted>. No...wait a minute, quite a few will be doing accounting and economics, as well as political "science" and law. That way, they can learn how to run this country in the most expedient and efficient manner possible, making it so much easier for all of us to live and get along together<sarcasm inserted>

Morons:mad2::mad2::mad2::mad2:

[FredSnerd]

OK, since this thread seems to be predominantly one way I thought I should make it interesting by continuing to agitate my position.

First. Thank god for freedom of expression and creativity. Its the road to discovery.

How is it that all these "young" people dont know (or choose not to apply) the basics of spelling and grammer and yet seem to communicate very effectively. And I can hear you say "You call that effective, he wrote 'to' when he should have written too". But you understood didnt you! And as for the minds of the young being "under trained". Oh please! We were all well into our adulthood before we started dealing with the concepts that the young deal with today.

Frankly I think we all need to grow up and not bother ourselves with trivia any more because theres too much out there to learn to occupy our minds with whether someone should have written "then" instead of "than".

See you on the other side when hopefully it wil all be revealed.

And regards to you all

[bojan]

Claude,
I do not agree with you.
If young people communicate effectively among themselves, this does not necessarily mean they communicate accurately.
Their messages will be interpreted more or less correctly by others, belonging to the same subculture.. but this is not accurate communication according to my books.
Someone mentioned earlier (Chris Omaroo I think..) computer language..
I will try to repeat his remark here: Just try something like this when you are writing a program or script and see what you will end up with.

OK, computers may be dumb.. but so are the people (at least some ;) ).

[FredSnerd]

What I think is wonderful about this thread is that I can make as many spelling and grammatical errors as I like and still be consistent with my position, yet those on the other side of the debate have to be very carful and lets be frank, there have been quite a few spelling and grammatical errors emanating from that side of the debate. Without meaniong to sound too smug I think in many ways it makes the point.

Sorry I'm bored this morning and this thread just so happens to deal with a pet subject of mine so hope I'm not offending anyone too much.

[FredSnerd]

Thanks for you're reply. I think effective communication is accurate communication. True its not accurate to you but then again nothing about how you communicate would have been accurate to Shakespeare and he would have wrongly, in my opinion, concluded from the way we communicate in this day and age that we are all stupid.

Which brings me to another pet subject of mine that you struck on. The one about people being stupid. It constantly amazes me how people freely say that people are stupid. You need to surf the net more and speak to people with an open mind more. I am constantly amased at how really really smart we are. Increadibly smart. Dont let the fact that we all come from different perspectives, different interests and different lives fool you. People are smart

[bojan]

You are leaving us now? When you start to feel the heat of the discussion on yourself ? :lol:

[renormalised]

You call the scrawl most of these kids come up with creativity??!!!. I could write better than most them do these days when I was 7 or 8 years old!!!. Let me give you an instance of this so called "freedom of expression and creativity". I walked into the the Biological Sciences building at JCU, one day, to go see my lecturer and get back an assignment I handed in the previous day. When I walked through the main door of the building, I could hear someone going right off about something. As it turned out, it was my lecturer. I knocked on his door and stuck my head around the corner to see if it was OK to come in. He asked me to come in and sit down. He then handed me my assignment, saying I was one of only 5 students who had actually passed.

Know what he did next?? He showed me example of the other people's assignments and asked me what did I make of them. I couldn't even read half of them!!!!!!!!. Most couldn't spell simple words like "was, didn't, and, etc", quite a few didn't even get their own names right and the legibility of the writing...forget about that completely. These people were supposed to be good enough to enter Uni, yet they were functionally illiterate!!!!. I even checked up on their maths. Now I'm no maths genius, but I can count to ten without having to use all my toes and fingers. Some of these people couldn't even do that, by the looks of their assignments!!!!.

That's not creativity or freedom of expression. None of them would be able to express themselves creatively at all if they were made to do so. Also, on another point, the oral expression of most of these people was atrocious. It's the same with most students at school these days. Many can't even string along a simple conversation without resorting to profanities or "pidgin English". What creativity I have heard resulting from this wouldn't even make good reading if it were at all possible for them to write it down without the help of a computer and spell checker (which, by the way, are fairly hopeless).

These children aren't communicating effectively, except to those of their own generation and even there they manage not to get the point across all that well because they change the rules of speech like they change their underwear. These children have poor communications skills. Most can't put their ideas down on paper (or on screen) because they have less than adequate reading and writing skills, even less so when it comes to basic mathematical skills. They need "props" to even get by when using computers, which, by the way, are a tool not a panacea to poor learning.

This society is heading backwards....back to the times when there was a social elite that could rule over the masses because they could monopolise and manipulate learning, making it easier for themselves to pull the wool over people's eyes. If you don't think it's happening, then take a look at when politicians make pronouncements and put most of their garbage out into the media. Most people just fall for the spin because there's so many out there who can't understand what they're on about. Most people have attention spans as short as a gnat's...ask them a week later what "xyz" was on about and they won't know.

Education in general has a lot left to be desired.

[Baddad]

Hi FredSnerd and All, :)

A good thread this.

I once was puchasing three items at a large store. Each about a $1 plus a few cents. The checkout chick (DCC) rang it up and demanded $32.

I blew a poofer valve. "How much is that?"

"$1.05",
"And that",
"$1.09",
"Last one",
"Er, $1.06".
"So how can that total $32?"
"Ooh, the till is right. Its $32."
The manager was called. Now DCC tried to blame the register. "The till is wrong sometimes".

DCC was incapable of comprehending that three one dollar items do not come close to $30.

Another incident:

I needed a statutory declaration written up. I explained the details to a solicitor. Two days later I recieved the stat dec. Spelling errors and grammatically error infested.

I returned to the offender and refused to pay. I left it laying in front of him and wrote my own. It was quite acceptable.

I was disgusted and flabbergasted at the poor product quality from a professional.

Spelling and maths is very important. We used to have a Federal Treasurer who failed high school maths. He later became Prime Minister.
The Nation's finance status suffered greatly at that time.

Cheers Marty

[FredSnerd]

Hi

Its a bit hard to respond to this because its all your conclusions about the papers you read. I understand that you concluded that the papers did not communicate effectively but thats based on your traditional way of assessing these things and thats really what we are debating.

But if there was anything in your post that seemed way out of line to me it was your lecturer giving you other peoples papers to read and critically appraise. Frankly I think that was digusting. Very poor performance indeed.

[bojan]

Very politically correct statement.

[FredSnerd]

Hey I got a billion stories I've collected over the years of the dumb things people do (esp the dumb things young people do - you ever in your whole life do anything as silly as that DCC - be careful how you answer because remember we need to believe you for your story to be credible)

[PCH]

That is an absolute cracker Fossil, a ripper.

Actually, I would of thought it would of appeared sooner ;)

So many people these days say 'of' instead of 'have'. It gets on my nerves in a "couldn't care less" sort of way.

:thumbsup:

[FredSnerd]

Hi,

Not sure what you mean. Are you suggesting that I am silly to be critical of the fact that a lecturer gives his student's work to other students to criticise. In your world where there is no "political correctness" would you allow that?

[bojan]

Yes, I would

[renormalised]

It's more than that (just those particular papers). I've also taught at high schools and I've seen the standard most of the children in the classes I taught had reached. I've also seen plenty of other examples in normal life. The levels of reading, comprehension, and writing are woeful. Thankfully there are some which have reached a reasonably satisfactory level, but most haven't.

How in all of history are you supposed to be able to effectively communicate a scientific (or any other) concept if you can't read and write to the level of being able to do so?? It's impossible, and it doesn't matter how "creative" you are or how well you can "express" yourself "freely", if you're functionally illiterate then you're pushing a lot of cow dung up a very steep hill.

The reason why he showed me those papers is because he was so exasperated at what he was seeing. Many of his colleagues that he talked to also agreed. I can tell you now that the reaction of the students, the looks on their faces, after he came to the lesson and basically told them all that if they didn't rewrite their assignments complete with proper grammar, spelling and in a legible structure, that he'd fail the lot of them, had a lot left to be desired. Most thought it was funny???!!!!!! Frankly, if that is the reaction of people these days to something as serious as this, then I don't see any real reason why they should even bother to go to Uni. Or, why the lecturers should even bother to teach these people.

They should either go back to school and relearn their basic English and maths, or go find a job digging ditches for the council, because that's all they're good for...simple manual labour.

[bojan]

And yes, even if it is my work.
Otherwise, how people would learn, if not told about their mistakes, or exposed, if nothing else works.

[bojan]

:thumbsup:

[FredSnerd]

And if it was your work and your children's work that the lecturer could shared with others whenever he chose, including for the purposes of ridicule that would be ok too?

[FredSnerd]

Well you might want to ask some teaching professionals about that style of teaching method. I think most people would be very reluctant to be taught by a method by which a lecturer can disseminate ones work to peers in the way suggested.

[bojan]

Your point is bit stretched..
But yes.
If it is my work, it is entirely my fault if I did it wrong.
As for my children (one daughter actually.. and she is math teacher at high school at the moment), I am (was) protective.. but only if the situation she found herself in was not her fault.

[rider]

No one has ever stopped language evolving. Language experts predict that international English will sound and have similar diction to Indian/English within the century. To our great-grandchildren our manner of sentence construction and spelling will sound as unintelligible and outlandish as Chips Raferty or Bradman sound to us today.


When we get frustrated with documents that don’t conform to our own way of communicating, it may be well to remember that the average person in Shakespearean days had a vocabulary of 500 words and they were not certain to have the same letters twice in the same manuscript. Today the average person knows 2000+ words and we largely conform to the similar spelling processes.
rider

[bojan]

Well.. that is exactly why we have so poor educational situation here in Australia, as described by others earlier.
BTW, a responsible teacher will NEVER ridicule students because of their lack of knowledge.. She/he will use peers to show how not to do things.
Also, this way of education certainly promotes the team work.
At least, this was how I was educated.

And I do think I missed anything, and neither were my peers.

[renormalised]

Lecturers don't, as a part of normal policy, share other people's work with anyone, except in cases of sheer exasperation, when those people who are submitting work are so lame and hopeless that it's a wonder they even passed through high school with enough basic skills to even function as a citizen in society.

How would you feel if you, as a lecturer at an University, had to spend most of a semester, or even a whole year, teaching people how to read and write properly even before you could get onto teaching the work that was required of them to learn?? I've seen it happen and I cant tell you they were not happy about it, at all.

[FredSnerd]

I dont understand your reasoning. Why are you talking about "fault". I give my teacher a paper so he can teach me not so he can punish me. If I get something wrong in an effort to learn am I "at fault" deserving of punishment or am I engaged in the process of learning. You might want to put this senario to your teacher daughter and ask her what she thinks about a teacher giving other student's work to other students for the express purpose of showing them the student's errors.

And lets be honest. You would never have allowed that to happen to your daughter

[renormalised]

I wonder if we'll roll our heads about like Indians and sound like them as well (in a comedy sense, that is:P:P:D:D)

You have to remember, most people in Shakespeare's time never had an education (or exceptionally basic, at the most). People these days are educated and there should be no excuse for someone to be functionally illiterate (except for obvious learning difficulties or other extenuating circumstances).

[Omaroo]

Huh? Anyone should be able to rattle off 2,000 words in five minutes without even thinking about it. LOL!

The average person (minimal to average education) has a working English vocabulary of 12,000 - 20,000 words. Higher-educated people run with 25,000 - 35,000 words without trouble. Shakespeare had a vocabulary (as many sources estimate) approaching 66,000+ words. The English language at the moment contains over 600,000 words (Unabridged Oxford English Dictionary) - and they're all available!

[FredSnerd]

How would I feel. Carl, He should behave like a professional. He's conduct was not professional. Bojan might pretend otherwise becuse he has this chip on his shoulder about political correctness but we know that there are very good reasons that you dont do what that lecturer did.

[bojan]

We obviously do not communicate at the same wavelength :P
Of course it is my fault, if after all the hours listening to my teacher I write something that is way below acceptable standards.
If I am not capable of comprehending what teacher is talking about, I am in the wrong place.
If I am capable, but careless to try hard enough, don't you think I deserve some sort of punishment? Or the whole thing should be swept under the carpet, as if nothing happened?

I would be very upset as a parent if my daughter failed to do her assignments properly and no-one knew about it, including myself (which WAS the tendency in her school (not always, but it was noticeable)... and which resulted in great shock when she joined much less tolerant environment at university.

Yes, mate, I am against political correctness of the day... It does not help.
Even if/when my own daughter was/is concerned. She learned her lesson and she will not repeat it in the future and this will be to her benefit only.

I will certainly talk to her about this issue and I will let you know what she thinks about the whole thing... But somehow I know what her answer will be ;)

[renormalised]

A professional he may be, but he's also human and sometimes we do things out of frustration and incredulity. In any case, I wasn't going to go around and announce to everyone what I had seen of their work. I'm more discreet than that and in any case, he knew me well enough as a person to know I wouldn't have done that.

His other colleagues had seen some of the work as well. They were of the same opinion as he was. You can't expect them to teach people like that. It's not their job to "hand rear" people who can't competently do the work because their basic skills are woefully inadequate to the task at hand. That's supposed to be the job of their school teachers, many of whom I might add are just as bad as the students they're supposedly teaching.

If I was to have seen their work anyway, if they had've shown me themselves, I would've told them to go back to school myself and I may have resorted to using a few expletives in describing the standard of their scrawl.

[bojan]

OK, lets not be too personal here.
I am not pretending about anything.
I just voiced one of my principles here. And I intend to observe it in the future.

[matt]

I'm pretty much of the same opinion as Chris (Omaroo).

I believe correct spelling very important and equally so grammar.

I work in the 'communication' industry as a writer and newsreader. These things are at the very foundation of how I make a living.

You would be shocked (or possibly not) how many university 'interns' we receive who have appalling spelling and grammar. And these are not first or even second year journalism students, but often those students within weeks of graduating! Some have even graduated.

It won't come as a surprise then when I tell you I've not seen one of them employed by our newsroom in the 2 years I've been here. Not even on a casual basis.

This is where the argument that correct spelling and grammar "doesn't matter", or is unimportant, breaks down. It certainly matters to these young people who cannot crack a job because their English skills are not up to snuff. These people are simply let down by a system which doesn't prepare them in a most fundamental area of their educations.

I blame their teachers, and I make no apology for that comment.

I'm sick of hearing teachers bleet on about how unimportant correct spelling and grammar is, when they themselves can't spell or construct a proper sentence. That just seems a little too convenient and self-serving, in my opinion.

I blame the 'dumbing down' of our teachers. I was witness to when the rot began in the mid 80s, when the writing was on the wall that a crisis in teacher numbers was looming large. What did the government of the day do, in its infinite wisdom? Did it make the profession more attractive by upping teacher's pay packets and improving their conditions?

Hell no!!!! It simply lowered the bar to let more people into the ranks. The Tertiary Entrance Rank became so pitifully low it was possible to study teaching with barely a pass mark at the HSC (NSW).

And more than 20 years later we are reaping the harvest.

I could go on....but I won't. It's too easy to offend and that's not my intention.

The point is: spelling and good grammar matters....at least to me. I must admit, though, I relax my attitude when it comes to what I read and post on a forum such as this.;)

[FredSnerd]

Ohhh. No you're a bit too hard for me. And your senario is all too black and white. Bad student v good teacher, no hoper student v good teacher. What about wants to learn student but just isnt catching on for the moment and needs help. I dont think punishment is going to help esp in this last senario.

Also your bluring quite a few things together and its not helpful. Parents right to know how their children are progressing and students being shown other students work for to display their errors. No correlation I'm affriad.

I think I know where you're comming from with this political correctness thing. You dont think our betters treat us harshly enough and were all getting away with murder.

More punishment thats what the people need

[bojan]

Education it a team effort, and it includes parents, teachers and peers, you like it or not.

And you do not know where I am coming from, you are only guessing..
Because our communication is not accurate (see my previous posts for definition of accuracy - it is not explicit though.. it is rather embedded in text), your guess is most probably very wrong :whistle:

But, who am I to judge...

[AstralTraveller]

Believing that spelling and grammar are important is not the same as saying one gets it right all the time. I think driving well is important but I still make mistakes. I also occassionally make mistakes at work. The point is, if you try you will likely be right most of the time.

[ngcles]

Hi Trevor & All,

To those "defenders of the faith" out there -- I'm with you!

My spelling and grammar are infrequently perfect first or second run through, but I do think it important to at least try and get it right so that you are clearly understood. To repeat, I am very much a "sinner" and a poor typist to boot, but one who at least tries to be penitent and right his wrongs.

I appreciate it can be difficult to see errors in your own document. When we proof-read, we tend to read what we meant to say rather than what is written on the paper (or screen). But "Rafferty's-Rules" is in reality "no-rules"; a one-way road to confusion. This is not intended as a racist comment, please don't take it that way but if we're not careful, we will all end up writing and speaking "Chinglish" style.

While I'm on the topic, one of the worst areas of degradation to our written language is the apostrophe ( ' ). The rules aren't that hard to learn and apply. Have a go at putting an apostrophe in the correct place today. Never know, you might even come to love 'em!

English is one of the most widely spoken and written languages in the world and almost certainly the most common "second language". We should be on our guard that its beautiful rules (even if sometimes a tad absurd) are cherished forever -- for clarity, precision and dare I say it, for their own sake.

Perhaps emoticons would be less used on this forum and the internet generally if our written English more clearly and precisely said what we wanted it to convey -- so there was no ambiguity or mistaken shade of meaning?

Maybe the need for emoticons is a symptom of this disease? Are they the only way we can make sure our thoughts and ideas are not misunderstood?

Food for thought!


Best,

Les D

[dpastern]

Spelling and grammar amongst today's youth is atrocious. This is the result of a combination of poor teaching, poor parental discipline and interest in their child's education, peer pressure, and idiotic habits that we derive from the US of A.

Dave

[Barrykgerdes]

Being able to spell correctly is is not old fashioned. It is an extremely valuable aid in interpreting the written word. The written word is the basis if knowledge and knowledge is the biggest asset one can have.
Next most important is grammar which is also becoming lax in modern society. Correct grammar can remove ambiguities in the written word which also helps in gaining knowledge.

After these language attributes mathmatics is the next most important attribute to be competent in. If you can't put two and two together you will soon become the subject of ridicule.

Barry

[FredSnerd]

Well I started today with the express purpose of achieving so much and instead spent most of my time on this thread and got nothing of my other work done. Only myself to blame I suppose but I have to say its been a real eye opener. I say that because I honestly had no idea that sooo many people felt this way. But I have to say it still hasn’t changed my mind and when I see the different and creative ways people express themselves now days I’m not personally unhappy with the direction its taking.


For those of you who have never seen this before you might find it facinating as I did.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY



Regards

[matt]

We need to differentiate between "creatively expressing oneself", which possibly rests within the arts, and the correct application of spelling and grammar.

It is perhaps this confusion which is at the heart of our debate/misunderstanding.

Creative expression is by its very definition a wholly subjective pursuit where breaking the rules is to encouraged and admired, whereas correct application of the English language has some very core rules and regulations which must be obeyed.

[bojan]

OK, I talked to my daughter - teacher...
and I was wrong in my assumptions... she did not support my line of thinking (showing the atrocious work of bad student to his/her peers as an example of how not to do things).
She rather expressed very similar opinion as yours, Claude, as this to be very unprofessional conduct.
Of course, the things in life are never black or white, I appreciate this, but I still think that "my way" might have some merits in certain circumstances :)
Perhaps as a last resort?

[FredSnerd]

Thanks for sharing your daughter's view. It was good of you. You didnt have to.

All the best to you

[bojan]

But of course I did have to..

I promised, right ? ;)

Otherwise I would have jumped right into my own mouth :scared:

[renormalised]

If you're to use an example of someone's work as not the way to do things, so long as that person's name is not mentioned or even inferred, I can't see what all the fuss would be about. In order to learn, you must have examples of what is the correct and incorrect way of doing things. If someone creates a report that is utter rubbish, then it's incumbent upon the teacher to show not only that person where they went wrong, but also to show the class the correct way as well. You can only do that by showing them examples of the wrong way, as well. You don't even have to use the whole report, just excerpts from it.

[FredSnerd]

I see advertising playing with grammar and spelling all the time. I see journalists, media outlets and politicians using words in ways that were never intended and often to deceive and mislead us. So I have to say its a bit difficult for me to accept that when the average Joe does it as part of popular culture its some how wrong or ignorant or indicative of his level of intellect and when the establishment does it, well, they’re just being creative or clever. No thank you.

[matt]

You're talking about something completely different.

This is not a debate about truth in advertising, nor about journalists or politicians being deliberately misleading to suit their own political/ideological agenda.

You are off target here, as you are with your justification of mangling the language based on some spurious 'creativity' justification.

Kind regards.....and clear skies.;)

[FredSnerd]

I wasnt talking about truth in advertising etc either. I was talking about taking liberties with the rules of grammer and spelling and when its acceptable and when its not.

I think what your reasoning leads to is that its OK for the establishment to break as many rules as they like because its some how creative or clever but when the average Joe does it (notwithstanding that his meaning might be equally clear but grmatically untraditional) he's some how wrong. Like I said, no thank you

[matt]

No...you're doing the same thing to me as you did with Bojan. Accusing me of holding some kind of self-assumed moral and intellectual high ground. It seems you're the one with some kind of chip on your shoulder.

I have maintained from the outset that the rules of the language are the rules. Plain and simple. I try to observe and uphold them in my daily life as a highly trained and thorough professional. I'm not in the habit of getting 'creative' with spelling and grammar.

Do you have any concrete examples of me espousing that it's OK for the 'establishment' to break the rules to be creative or clever?

I thought my position on this subject was very clear.

By the way, you're doing my profession an injustice lumping it in with politicians.

The last time I checked...we are not very often on the same team:lol:

And I don't work in the advertising field, so I don't feel qualified to make a statement one way or the other on their behaviour...other than to say I believe they take a few more liberties given they are meant to be 'creative'. (There's that word again).

[matt]

Now...what were we talking about?:rofl::rofl:

[Omaroo]

I'll chip in for the advertising fraternity here. We are VERY thorough in our correct use of English. Unless a play on words or spelling is called for to emphasise a point, or is cleverly used in the form of a pun, it isn't on. We are a creative bunch of people, and our creativity is the basis on which almost subliminal idea transfer can be achieved, with as few words as possible, if we've done our job right. Making a spelling or grammatical mistake is not a product of that creativity. Agency managers that cannot assign creatives who can spell to a design campaign generally don't last long in the business.

Our corporate clients expect no less than Australian dictionary-perfect English otherwise. The very newspapers and magazines we place the material in expect it too. Don't go generalising on the misgivings of the ad trade please. High-end agencies are sticklers for correct use - not the lazy use of words. You won't find people that can't spell or recognise the correct use of grammar in this trade either. I refuse young people all the time when it comes to employment. Can't spell or don't even think it's important? Sorry - no work for you here!

[matt]

Yeah...what Chris said....about our advertising mates:D

[mithrandir]

Grammar has cropped up incorrectly spelled multiple times in this thread.

The only words you should ever see "creatively" spelled are trademarks.

[Omaroo]

LOL! Bravo - someone's paying attention. :thumbsup:

This is why we employ VERY expensive people called proof readers. Those who can spell still make occasional mistakes... and when found will endeavour to go back and correct the error. To top it off - it was I who mentioned that word spelled incorrectly in the first place! :lol: We should thank people for pointing out an error that we didn't pick up ourselves first time around. Thank you Andrew! :)



Now - should you have used, considering we use British English by default here in Australia, "spelt" rather than "spelled"?

[Moon]

Interesting thread.
At work I speak International English. If you adopt common grammatical mistakes it helps your stuffs to be understood.

[TheDecepticon]

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

Says it all, I think.
But then a gain, edumacation neva realy dun me ane gud!!:lol::lol::lol:

[renormalised]

Itz tha kweens inglish az itz spokin:P:P:D:D

[FredSnerd]

Sorry,

Had to duck out but back now. Hmmmm, so many issues. First I didnt "Accus[e] .. [you] of holding some kind of self-assumed moral and intellectual high ground". I spoke about where your reasoning leads to. That is, where the logic of your reasoning leads to. Its fanciful to suggest that it was a personal attack and disingenuous of you to challenge me to find examples of where you have esposed these things. The whole reason for me bringing it up was to show that this is where the logic leads. Something I'd be wasting my time doing if thats what you espouse.

As to how you personally conduct yourself in you work and the licence you may or may not take with the language I dont know and its not important to my argument. The thing is, from what I have observed the media (not you personally, I'm not talking about you), politicians and the advertising world are constantly ignoring and bending the rules of grammer, spelling and distorting words when it suites them to get their meaning accross or to crack that joke or to make that pun or to get us thinking in a certain direction. If the language is plyable for them when it suites them then (i) it only encourages us to do the same and (ii) why shouldnt we.

As for me lumping your profession in with politicians. First I'm not talking about you personally but as for your prefession I have to say that yes I do feel that your profession is on the same team as politicians. Certainly not out team.

[bojan]

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough?
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is give it up!

[Scoper]

I recall the same criticisms and hand wringing over the "decline" of education and the "stupidity" of young people (lack of spelling and grammar etc) being levelled at my generation, I am 56.
This is nothing new. It seems to have always been a favourite pastime for the older generations to deride and belittle the younger ones. Do you baby boomers remember the "young people of today" chant?
And as for "checkout chicks", they are just young people doing a fine job.
They don't deserve to have their work or themselves demeaned.
Here's to our younger generation!
Cheers

[bojan]

The European Commission has announced an agreement whereby
English will be the official language of the EU, rather than
German, which was the other contender. Her Majesty's Government
conceded that English spelling had room for improvement and has
therefore accepted a five-year phasing in of "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly,
this will make sivil servants jump for joy. The hard "c" will be
dropped in favour of the "k", Which should klear up some konfusion
and allow one key less on keyboards.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when
the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f", making words like
"fotograf" 20% shorter.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be
expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are
possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters
which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil
agre that the horible mes of the silent "e" is disgrasful.

By the fourth yer, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as
replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords
kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer
kombinations of leters. After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli
sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and
everivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer. ZE DREM VIL FINALI
COM TRU!

Herr Schmidt

[renormalised]

I can see it now....millions lining the main square, all holding candles as the imperious leader gives his maiden speech in "New English"...notice the funny symbols on the armbands of their shirts....:P:P:D:D

[FredSnerd]

Hey Chris, I'm glad you posted this because I think it makes the point. I agree entirely that for advertising to make its point effectively or creatively its legitimate to "break" or ignore the rules. The advertising industry wants to alert me to the existence of a product or sell me something so it decides that it's ok to forget grammer or spelling because it has a higher priority. Similarly I think why should I observe any more rules then I have to because I have other priorities and as long as i get my meaning accross or get it accross better, whats it matter. The thing about breaking the rules is that eventually the rules lose their legitimacy and then its difficult to expect others to simply accept the lines you draw about when it is and when its not permissible to break them.

[matt]

I'm not sure what the [e] bit's all about?:lol:

Anyway, I stand by my assertion. You appear to have an issue with people who hold certain standards of education and schooling in high regard. It appears you believe these people to be 'sticklers', and much of your argument appears based around us letting it go, and getting with the new tech-savvy program which involves some kind of language de-evolution which you believe we just have to learn to accept as inevitable.

I hasten to point out that the YouTube video link you provided featured fairly good spelling in the text, while promoting this Brave New World which we're mostly already familiar with.

I would still like some examples of what you're talking about when you make your fanciful broad generalisations about the media.

And as for the media not being on your team? Well, it's bloody funny how so many look to the media to keep politicians and their ilk honest, and how people like you expect the media to champion causes close to your heart or those of others, when it suits you.

That's the problem for folks like us in the media. We're most mostly damned if we do and damned if we don't. But we're always expected to do the legwork when you expect it, like some kind of lackey.

We're on your team...when we are saying what you want to hear or endorsing what you believe.

That's about it for me. Long live anarchy and 'creativity'...old mate! Go the 'grammer'!!!!!!!!!!!

[FredSnerd]

You can go on with this if you want but I clearly meant nothing personal about you.

I have very high regard for education and schooiling and its precisely because of this that I dont want to see time wasted on what in my respectful opinion is a waste of time and I feel sorry for young people who have to put up with this because thats how you were taught when you were a boy.

I never look to the media to keep politicians honest. The media are most of the problem in my opinion and I look forward to the growth of citizen reporting. God forbid I should ever look to the media to champion any cause.

[matt]

Yep...that'll be a great day.

Because, let's face it, truly great journalism and reporting, based on years of experience in information gathering and research, and understanding of libel and defamation laws...and everything else that goes along with being a good reporter, is just something anyone can can just get cracking on overnight!

And will they be good at speeling and grammer as we'll, or that won't matter in the Citizen Gazette?:lol:

Prey tell, your profession, sir?

[kinetic]

One thing I admire is(are?) people like Bojan who take up learning
the intricacies of the English language with a passion.
They feel they are letting someone down to not at least try
their best. I sincerely hope that doesn't sound patronising Bojan....
I say, anyone who can speak in more than one language
very competently is a far better person than me! All 'props'
to them.:)

And secondly, as if almost on cue...my inbox tonight...

(while on the subject of proof readers):

paste >

Proofreading is a dying art, wouldn't you say?

Man Kills Self Before Shooting Wife and Daughter

This one I caught in the SGV Tribune the other day and called the Editorial Room and asked who wrote this. It took two or three readings before the editor realized that what he was reading was impossible!!! They put in a correction the next day.




I just couldn't help but sending this along. Too funny.
Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers

Now that's taking things a bit far!
-----------------------------------------------------------

Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over

What a guy!
---------------------------------------------------------------

Miners Refuse to Work after Death

No-good-for-nothing' lazy so-and-so's!
------------------------------------------------------

Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant

See if that works any better than a fair trial!
----------------------------------------------------------

War Dims Hope for Peace

I can see where it might have that effect!

----------------------------------------------------------------

If Strike Isn't Settled Quickly, It May Last Awhile

Ya think?!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures

Who would have thought!
----------------------------------------------------------------

Enfield ( London ) Couple Slain; Police Suspect Homicide

They may be on to something!
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Red Tape Holds Up New Bridges

You mean there's something stronger than duct tape?
----------------------------------------------------------

Man Struck By Lightning: Faces Battery Charge

He probably IS the battery charge!
----------------------------------------------

New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group

Weren't they fat enough?!
-----------------------------------------------

Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft

That's what he gets for eating those beans!
---------------- ---------------------------------

Kids Make Nutritious Snacks

Do they taste like chicken?
*********************************** *****

Local High SchoolDropouts Cut in Half

Chainsaw Massacre all over again!
*********************************** ****************

Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors

Boy, are they tall!
*********************************** ********
And the winner is....


Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead


Did I read that right?

Steve

[astroron]

Very Funny Steve :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl: the last one is the best:thumbsup:

[dpastern]

English, in reality is a ******* language. Primarily Germanic in nature (yes), it also its has roots in Celtic, Arabic, French, Greek and even Latin. That said, I find English to be a chaotic mix or language rules. Try speaking German or Gaelige, where the rules are far stricter, at least from my experience.

I had an interesting discussion with my employer about all of this tonight - she has 30 years teaching experience on her side, and she feels that literacy and grammar are dreadful with todays modern children. I tend to agree with her. I've seen a very real drop in grammar over the past 20 something years, and I'm not imagining it either. That all said, my employer is also scathing of modern universities, where we see parrots in existence. Many years ago, the creme de la creme (excuse my laziness and lack of diacriticals) went to university. These days, everyone goes because it's de rigeur. That does not make it a quality education imho.

Dave

[Screwdriverone]

Uh-Oh, I think Jen just passed out!

[DJDD]

Bit of a vexed topic...


I am not sure how it would be possible for the language to change if we all endeavoured to, and were able to, use the same accepted spelling for any particular word at that time.





I agree pretty much completely with the message of the above quoted text. There are some grammatical standards we should adhere to (the use of the apostrophe is a good example); however, I also realise that grammar changes, and has changed, over the centuries.

Now, some would say that I should have written, "There are some grammatical standards to which we should adhere". hmmm...the second is grammatically correct but only to a rule that was made up to fit the rules of Latin...


Now, what about the use of the semi-colon ? And its use when teemed with the word "however" (as I used it above)?

What about starting a sentence with "And"?
However, what about starting a sentence with "however"?
Is it ok if I do it because I have some reasonable grasp of grammatical conventions and so can "bend the rules" when I want to?
some would say yes, some no.

oh, and what about the use of apostrophes in the written word, for example, using "can't" instead of "cannot" or "don't" instead of "do not"? I was taught never to use contractions in written works (letters and essays were all we had back then) but I see it in forums all of the time (this very thread, in fact). Is that correct?


As I mention above, some grammatical "rules" within English have been "made up" within the last century to match grammatical rules of another language (Latin). What the...?

I have a few pet peeves (overuse of commas, for instance) but I try not to let them ruin any friendships. :lol: On the other hand, I probably overuse ellipses (ellipsi?) and parentheses...which must drive people crazy! oh no, no comma before the "which"...

[DJDD]

In a similar vein to the idea of grammatical rules for English being invented to match the rules of Latin...

I heard recently on one of the ABC radio stations, so my source is not definitive, that Samuel Johnson, the creator of the dictionary, only included words in his dictionary if they had been written somewhere, even if the words were in common use by the illiterate masses. This meant that a large portion of our English language, spoken by the illiterate masses, was not included in the dictionary and lost to antiquity.

a shame, really...

[rat156]

You know what I really hate, you know...

That part of the illiterate masses speech could be removed, I wouldn't mind at all.

I also hate that my spell checker constantly underlines anything I write with "ise" in it. It even did it then when I put quotes around it. I am told that if I install the correct dictionary it won't do it, but I told it what country I live in, surely it can work it out for itself. Webster should have been shot at birth.

My other pet hates about the misuse of the English language;


everythink (shudder) or nothink (although if you split it at just the right place...)
the replacement of "ph" with "f" (I had an interesting conversation with some US colleagues, the upshot of which was when they start spelling phosphorous with two "f's" I'll spell sulphur with one (yes, I'm a chemist, that's the sort of banter we have))
de-planing (meaning disembarking an airplane)

That's enough for now, it is making me ill.

Cheers
Stuart

[mithrandir]

OK, Everyone go out and buy your own copy of:

"The Little Green Grammar Book"
Mark Tredinnick
ISBN 978 086840 919 1
UNSW Press

"... No matter what you write (novels, poems,papers, reports, letters to the council, instructions, emails, blogs, wine labels or Christmas cards), this fuss-free book of grammar will help you say what you mean to say neatly and unmistakably."

There will be a test later.

[Screwdriverone]

I'm with you Stuart,

Those dang Americans, one thing that has always bugged me is that they seem to change words either just to suit themselves, or make them easier to spell, such as colo(u)r, rumo(u)r etc and the worst one of all...........Aluminum! Where has the second i gone?

You cannot just REMOVE a letter from a Chemical name in the periodic table for convenience! Or perhaps Al-oo-min-ee-um is too hard to pronounce? I don't know.

Gosh Darn it!

Chris

[MrB]

I read somewhere(moan) that the etymology of Aluminium is infact in their favour.
Can't remember where though so Wikipedia's listing should suffice for now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#Etymology

Edit: Can't believe I'm batting for the Americans!
Think I'll start using Alumium from now on ;)

[Screwdriverone]

You sure you are going to use Alumium Simon?

Alumium, or Aluminum? Your choice I spose, or did you mean that? ie Simon says "Alumium", so now we spell it that way? :P

Cheers

Chris

p.s. I suppose that because its in Wikipedia, it's got to be true....hmmmm?

[MrB]

Yeah I'm using Alumium lol.

I originaly read about the etymology somewhere else, some time ago, not on wikipedia.

Oh, and put your hands on your head ;)

[Screwdriverone]

No! you didn't say "Simon says - put your hands on your head", so NO, I WON'T ner ne ner ne ner ner!:P

tee hee

Chris

[Screwdriverone]

Oh, and by the way, I have just trademarked and registered the letter A as the new name I have for Aluminium, so every time someone uses the letter A or a, I will get a royalty.

I thought if you can have Alumium (20c for you) then every A is MINE!

Alum-etc was just too hard to say, so A it is from.....................NOW!

I have spoken (or written to be more precise)

Heed my words!

Chris

[MrB]

In th-t c-se, I'll be removing the '-' from '-lumium'.
No roy-lties from me!
H-h-h-!

[ngcles]

Hi All,

I'd just like to add here how much I've enjoyed this thread -- no matter what your opinion is it has been fun to read. One of the best things about it is that it is almost impossible to go off topic ...



Yes, I've been waiting patiently for our "Queen of the Emoticons" to take the proffered bait, but not yet it seems [please insert "tongue-in-cheek emoticon here].



Agree. In my books there is one even worse ... instead of "ask" or "asked" we hear "arks" or "arksed" (arxed??) [Insert teeth grinding emoticon here]

Grrrrr ...




Plead guilty also yer honour !! If Jen promises to limit emoticons to one per post, I'll also limit myself to one set of parentheses and one ellipsis per post. C'mon Jen, wanna play?

More seriously, someone mentioned in passing "Brave New World" somewhere above and that only made me think of the George Orwell novel "Nineteen Eighty Four" -- and the subject of "newspeak". If you haven't read it at all or at least not lately take a peek and you will see the consequences of dumbing down language.

If concepts don't have words to describe them and a structure (grammar) within which to set it, an idea cannot be properly communicated and is difficult to even think. A full language provides more room to think and to convey ideas to others without ambiguity and less chance of mistake. It promotes wider thought and imagination -- and its fun!


Best to all for your entertaining and well thought out contributions,

Les D

[DJDD]

hey, thanks. Is the author an Australian? published by UNSW Press so there should be no "ize's"- realize, capitalize, prosthelytize...

I like reading books like this- it may satisfy my inner pedant... :lol:

[mithrandir]

Taken from the title page:

"Mark Tredinnick is a poet, essayist and writing teacher. He lives in Burradoo, in the highlands southwest of Sydney. ..."

My earlier quote is from the back cover.

Also "The Little Red Writing Book" and, to appear in 2009, "The Little Black Book of Business Writing"

[OneOfOne]

I always laugh when I see CD's and DVD's.

My wife did an assignment for Uni a few years ago and put in apostrophes in a number of places, I believe correctly, and the lecturer crossed them all out :mad2:, eg.

"the web page's home page", I believe this is correct?

The other is putting 's at the end of words ending in an "s" already, like...can't think of one, maybe like (changed to Omaroo's suggestion)... "all of the dogs's toys", should be "all of the dogs' toys"?

[Omaroo]

By running a quick and dirty analysis on the direction of each response, I come to the conclusion that the TV show was full of it, and did not portray an accurate state of affairs as far as the common man sees it. Our language is still near and dear to us. It makes us who we are, it is the underlying backbone of our culture and it allows us to communicate with one another on unequivocal terms.

It's clear that 95+ percent of us are of the opinion that it's unnacceptable to simply "not care" how it's used and maintained. It is one of the things that we should really care about, and not let slide into disarray. It is not a waste of time to learn it properly. It is essential to have standards.

I don't have kids. If I did, I'd be telling any teacher instructing them that it's unimportant to spell properly to go and get a job they're really capable of. Teaching isn't one of them.

[Omaroo]

Trevor - I was taught this way... right or wrong. I believe that your wife's lecturer was wrong.

Generally, if the noun is singular, the apostrophe goes before the 's':

The dog's toy.

If the noun is plural, the apostrophe goes after the 's':

...all of the dogs' toys.

However, if the word is pluralised without an s, the apostrophe comes before the s:

He entered the men's room with an armload of people's clothing.

[DJDD]

This is a great thread, which has not descended to flaming... :thumbsup:



But (is that ok?) it is now ok to use either:
the Jones' dog
or
the Jones's dog

, which is a rule that has changed since I was at school. :shrug:
Perhaps there never was a rule and both have always been correct; we were simply forced to use the first one and told the second was incorrect, making it a rule by common usage. Perhaps Mark Tredinnick's book will give me the answer.


Regarding Latin rules that have been forced upon English:
I first came across this fifteen years ago when a friend submitted her PhD thesis in which the first line contained a split infinitive, "To boldly go..." (she was a fan Star of Trek). One of the examiners crossed it out. The "rules" had changed, however, and it was okay to use split inifinitives again, although the examiner did not know that... :rolleyes:

[OneOfOne]

I didn't get a chance to check this thread until this morning, as fast as I could skim my way through the responses, the thread was getting longer. I think both sides of the argument are presenting some interesting views, I don't know if the "other side" will sway my opinion though :D (sorry for the emoticon...).

It is great that no-one (or is that noone....eeeww!) has begun to degrade the thread into verbal abuse either, thanks for that :) (oops, there goes another one).

Well, I have to do some work!

[AstralTraveller]

Like you Trevor I'm behind in following this thread. So I'll just comment that IMHO the use of emoticons and common abbreviations is acceptable in a setting such as this. The judicious use of emoticons allows the transmission of body language and so gives the dialogue a more conversational flavour. One can also relax - but not abandon - the rules of grammar, just as people do in a conversation. Of course other writing calls for the correct use of language. I can assure you that my thesis is totally devoid of emoticons. :D

Likewise, back to the salt mines. :(

[beefking]

The interesting thing about the US spelling of words ending in "-our" is that their way, "-or", was the dominant spelling when the American colonies were settled.

In the years after this, the fashionability of French things increased in England, which led people in England to modify their spelling to a more French style, hence "-our" and the adoption of many French phrases into standard english.

so, strictly speaking, the Americans are correct, and we are the victims of fashion who debased the mother tongue.


edit: erm... actually, that could be completely wrong or only partially right. wiki "Noah Webster", the man who wrote the eponymous dictionary. He didn't like the rules of spelling, so he wrote a spelling guide that changed them. It looks like a lot of the differences between American English and English are due to the subsequent popularity of his spelling guide.

[Fossil]

Smee again. :whistle:
A real pet hate of mine is the overuse, or incorrect use, of 'like'. Listening to the (mainly) younger generation makes me wonder if they put their brain into gear before their mouth. For example: I went out, like, for a walk and, like, went to the shops to, like, get something to eat, like, you know, and the guy behind the counter was, like, really weird...'
Also, as mentioned by others above, one has to wonder how people make it through school, let alone university. I was once in the collections office of the Australian National University in Canberra when fees were being collected. There was this student re-enrolling and was writing a cheque. I was floored when he turned to me and said "Excuse me mate, do you know how to spell 'hundred'".
I know I am far from perfect, and I am often guilty of incorrect grammar or punctuation, but I do try to ensure that I am as clear and unambiguous as I can be.

[FredSnerd]

I was gonna do one of those emoticon things but it took me an age to draw (no where near as good as your ones I might add) and then trying to transcribe it into the puter and then animating it. I just had to give up I'm affraid. Oh no, inks running out

[Screwdriverone]

Ha™ Ha™ Ha™ Ha™ Ha™, nice one.....wa™it a™ second!

A™ha™! I GOT you Simon, pa™y up, there is 2 a™'s in Ba™a™der in your signa™ture and one A™ in WA™ on your loca™tion at the top right.

Tha™t's $0.60 RIGHT THERE! a™nd tha™t's just for one post! sta™rt counting them up....

I ta™ke BPA™Y, VISA™, Ma™sterca™rd, Money Order or direct credit, but plea™se a™dd 3% for Pa™ypa™l ! :D

Da™mn, I a™m going to be rich, RICH I tells ya™! Fa™bulously wea™lthy Woohoo!

Cheers

Chris

[Miaplacidus]

A meditation on the benefits of pedantry...

I suspect that somewhere in here we are talking about respect.
Do we occupy a middle ground between divinity and beast? If so, surely it is through our capacity for abstract thinking. We’re pretty good at manipulating things, but what makes us special is our particular talent for manipulating symbols. People here have made the point that computer programming is very unforgiving of misspellings and poor syntax. So, too, is mathematics. So, too, I imagine, are the calculations that engineers use to design buildings and build bridges. If my interlocutor is imprecise in spelling and grammar, what else am I to deduce but that they are lazy and uncaring, and perhaps that I ought not to trust whatever they build with the language? If I receive a letter written in crayon and besmirched by dirt, it is difficult to believe I am respected. (On the other hand, if it comes from a 5 year old I might be delighted.) What does it say about someone who thinks it is unimportant if others have to work harder to understand what they are saying? An FU if ever there was.

If I try to learn a foreign language, how else is my teacher to assess me but by my ability to spell words and use grammar correctly? And naturally I would expect to gain extra credit for demonstrating a refined vocabulary, a vocabulary by which I can convey increasingly subtle meanings, meanings that are more precise, that possess nicer and finer distinctions, and allow a closer understanding of what I am struggling to communicate. Am I entitled to consider myself better than another student who cannot do these things quite so well? Well, yes, I imagine I am.

But then, it is also partly a question of how we measure success. Some people consider their language skills sufficient if they can order beer and get laid. A Maserati can achieve the same thing, and the comparison is not entirely frivolous since language is also a vehicle. Where do you want to go? Do you just want to get laid, or are you looking for a soul mate? Who is to say which is the higher purpose?

In India, the relationship between a musician and his instrument is deeply personal. Ravi Shankar was almost physically sick when he saw Jimi Hendrix deliberately destroy one of his beautiful guitars on stage. Would the world be a better place if everybody shared Ravi’s reverence for their means of expression? Well, I tend to think so. But did Jimi create something wonderfully liberating and new through his sacrilegious disrespect, his deconstruction of pre-existing prejudices and expectations? Well, again, I like to think so. (“Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself?”) But as an ad for bass guitars once had Billy Sheehan pretending to say “You’ve got to know the rules before you can break them.”

In life, in literature, sometimes there is a point to doing the hard thing, and even in making it harder than necessary. But usually, I believe, it is our human duty to make things easier for others to understand. “Speak clearly, write well, do the best you can. Make the effort so that others don’t have to. Act your age.” When is this advice ever invalid?

[renormalised]

In response to the last post's caption, this thread will not die because it goes right to the heart of our very being here...communication. Being able to say what we mean as concisely as we can and to convey our thoughts and feelings in a positive and understandable way.

I think we can all say we've done a pretty good job so far:)

[DJDD]

:thumbsup: enjoyed your post... respect...:)

[matt]

Indeed, Carl.

I really do believe a measure of maturity and how reasonable an individual is, and that of the group/s to which they belong, is just how well they can agree to disagree.

You can learn a lot about people not by just how well they get along when they share the same opinions and values, but at those times when they hold quite opposing views.

I may not share the same opinion as others, on occasion, but I'll respect their right to hold, and express, an alternate opinion.

This has been a great thread:thumbsup:.

[Octane]

Brian,

Can I just say that it is an absolute pleasure and joy to read your posts?

I have thoroughly enjoyed each one of your 802 posts, and, no doubt will enjoy the rest to come.

Thank you, sir.

Regards,
Humayun

P.S. If there is one thing that really annoys me, as far as language is concerned, it is the use of the term^ "tweet(s)" in reference to the vermin that is Tw*tt*r.

^ I use the word "term", loosely.

[Miaplacidus]

Thanks Humayun, Djdd.

Actually, although I have qualms, I don't doubt we're heading towards a post-literate society. It is all too easy to imagine a time when the last Reader — some quaint, comical, professorial figure — having finally failed in the years-long rear-guard action against the erosion of his university funding, is ultimately rolled up into the unpopular Cultural History department of some 22nd century university (the occasional PhD student still comes to penetrate the wisdom of Homer Simpson). All the world’s books having finally have been scanned into a pixel, they are quickly forgotten, never to be read again except by an incurious machine.


(No doubt they scoffed when someone suggested abandoning latin.)

And if anyone thinks this is too pessimistic, consider something I read about only last year. (It sounds a bit premature to me, I must admit, but not totally implausible.) Supposedly there is already emerging in history departments worldwide a potential problem. The newest students entering university are unable to read original documents written in plain English simply because they were written in cursive script. But don’t despair! Apparently there is a technological solution on the horizon, and before long we ought to be able to translate into typed text the hand written scribblings of such historical figures as Maggie Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.

Phew!

P.S. I guess they were never going to use the word Twit.

[Omaroo]

Are you implying that current school kids are not taught good old "running writing" as part of their standard curriculum any more? I can't believe that, surely!

[renormalised]

As far as I know, Chris, that's the case.

[Lee]

I agree.... the other one I really dislike now is "yeah", when it is used at the end of a sentence after a short pause..... I think it means they have forgotten how to talk, or run out of words to use!

"I went out, like, for a walk and, like, went to the shops to, like, get something to eat, like..... yeah... "

[astroron]

Another one that gives me the pip is "Ya Know" in the middle and end of sentences, and any where in between.
I am guilty as any one else, but want to kick myself for saying it:(

[mithrandir]

Chris,

If by good old running writing you mean what I learnt 50 years ago, then yes. Even that was not the immaculate copperplate my Mum still writes.

My sisters, two and four years younger, were taught Cursive and then Modified Cursive. Printed capitals, no loops on b,f,g,... but joined.

SWMBO is an Assistant Principal at one of the nearby Primary Schools and has taught writing for over 30 years.

She thinks NSW Foundation Style has been in use for over 20 years but can only find a syllabus dating back to 1997. See the last page of http://k6.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/files/english/k6_english_syl.pdf

Most letters join, some don't.

[ngcles]

Hi All,



So far as I'm aware "joined-up writing" is no longer taught. My daughter finished the HSC last year, primary school in 2002 and there was not a jot.

When she saw "running writing" for the first time (my missus still uses it habitually), she thought it quaint, in a similar vein to a record that had music on both sides -- that was utterly astonishing.

I guess it comes back to the fact that there must be insufficient room in the syllabus because there are so many other really important things to be taught these days in primary school :rolleyes:

It also goes back to your earlier quite correct observation Chris, about the appalling standard of the teachers. If they can't do it, how can they teach the kids?

I could tell you a story or two about high-school science teachers in the public system that were involved in my daughter's "education", but I'll leave that for another time ...



Twitter should instead be called "minutiae" (for that is what it is). The individual posts then become "minutes" ?


Best,

Les D

P.S Even better, in the spirit of "Twitter" and "Tweet" it could be re-named "Minutiae" and "Manure"??

[Screwdriverone]

One of the most important and valuable things I ever learned in school was the ability to write in traditional cursive handwriting, taught by an absolute master of the art, Mr Daly from Winmalee Public School in the Blue Mountains.

I look at the scrawls that pass for writing these days and shudder as to where we are headed.

Every time (and I mean EVERY) my family buys a birthday card or needs to write a note to a teacher etc, it is invariably my writing that goes on it, which to me, is a compliment not only to me, but to Mr Daly who taught me over 30 years ago.

A handwritten card or letter in cursive script it often treasured above a printed one and relatives have often commented how beautiful it is to receive such a lovely written card with some interesting and well presented wishes, rather than just "Dear you, Happy Birthday, from Us"

All of this may sound a bit self centred and self important but I honestly am proud of the skills I have in spelling and writing and value them. Being able to express yourself clearly and intelligently is a valuable asset to have, sadly one which is rapidly declining and soon may disappear altogether....

A perfect example of the ever widening gap between generations was highlighted to me at work recently when I was talking to a colleague who is 24 years old (my junior of 15 years). I told her that the information she had requested of a customer was probably moot now because she already figured out the answer. She looked at me blankly and asked "moot? what the heck is moot?". It took over 15 minutes to try and explain it to her. :rolleyes:

And I don't event think it's possible to explain irony to my wife, I have tried and tried and failed a number of times, she just doesn't get it. Ironic isn't it?

Cheers

Chris

[Starkler]

What I see increasingly nowadays that I never used to see is interchanging of 'to' and 'too'.

eg: "I'm going too the pub."
"Can I come to?"

[Starkler]

The number of times I have seen written "the point is mute."

Argggghhhh!

[marki]

In WA schools it appears about half the primary teachers teach cursive or running writing whilst the others seem to concentrate on printing alone. Makes it very interesting when they get to high school in respect to how I write notes on the board. For me my printing is shocking due to nerve damage affecting my fine motor skills (had it all my life) but due to a lot of practice (and I mean a lot) I can produce decent script when writing cursively. If I print it is difficult for most to read, if I write cursively only half the class can read it :P. My answer is to use overheads or power point to get the message across.

As for spelling, educational theory has tossed the use of phonics out the window. Why can't kids spell??? There is your answer. It is only now coming back into vogue as the academics and theorists who pushed it out find they cannot read the work of their students. Grammer whats that????

Mark

[kinetic]

Miaplacidus's post:

Thoroughly entertaining and cleverly written. :thumbsup:
Most of the points he makes might have been lost in translation
if not for my tenuous grasp of English.:)

I have to just add one more thing though that bothers me:


This bloke is obviously up to no good!
I would be calling security!

Steve

[renormalised]

Chris, just tell her her irony is in the "cupboardy", and she'll get it:P:D:D

[Screwdriverone]

HA HA HA HA HA :lol:

Nice one Carl,

Although, I probably won't say that, I know my place....the correct answer to anything the wife says is "Yes dear"

Cheers

Chris

[Screwdriverone]

Seems that you have to "dumb" down the lesson by typing it out so people can read it? That's where things are sliding, unfortunately.

By the way, grammer is spelled g r a m m a r. Sheesh! Irony again!

p.s I reckon you whould change the caption under your name to: "Good News Everyone!" As this is what I think every time I see your avatar...

Cheers

Chris

[renormalised]

A little bit of irreverence never goes astray:P:D:D

[Jen]

:lol::lol::lol:
:evil::evil:

[marki]

Folks, the loss of literacy amongst youth is due to the study of English becoming a study of sociology. The basics are no longer considered important, drills and skills have moved into the distant past, comprehension and application rule. I am not being sexist here but this kind of thought is linked strongly to the feminisation of most curriculum now taught in most states.

Mark

[renormalised]

Thereby, in not teaching the correct use of the language, even the comprehension and application of the language have become lacking. If not almost non-existent.

[marki]

You will get no argument from me Carl, even the older english teachers are screaming over here but it falls on deaf ears. The kids are expected to deal with material that needs a good thirty years of life experience to begin to understand. It's a total disaster and many new teachers (including english) are basically illiterate themselves. When we write reports they are cross checked by several staff members before going out to parents. Some of the comments are simply rubbish in terms of spelling, grammer and tense. I won't say who the worse offenders are though ;).

Mark

[renormalised]

One way to fix that, Mark (and make the idiots sit up and take notice). Refuse to teach, point blank, and state your reasons why. Make a huge hullabaloo about it and spread it as far and wide as you can. Get it in the national media. Show up the academics in their little ivory towers and the (equally ignorant) politicians who implement the garbage in legislation. Get everyone who's concerned about the state of our education system to support the drive to get back to educating our kids properly and stop filling their heads with the nonsense they promulgate these days.

[sjastro]

Has anyone considered the unpalatable option, the reason why kids are struggling at school is that the human race is becoming dumber and dumber.

Steven

[Robh]

You know we live in a democratic society. The masses have decided that education is boring and essentially irrelevant. So after a generation or two, they've decided to dumb things down a bit and make it easier for everyone. Now, it doesn't matter if there is nothing to get excited about in education. The masses have an unlimited supply of entertainment to fill their lives and keep them happy. As a consequence, the young aspire to become entertainers, movie or rock stars or professional sportsmen, who, of course, earn millions of dollars every year. Our esteemed leaders are quite happy with this status quo as the masses don't wish to waste their time thinking about important policies and are keen to leave all the "boring" decisions to the experts. ;)

Rob.

[marki]

Carl, we have just finished and won a 15 year battle to overturn and remove bad educational theory from curriculum in WA. Basically it came down to a group of chem and physics teachers who would not give up no matter how much flak they copped. This stuff is enshrined in law over here and the last state govt had to be removed before any progress could be made. As a result people are just tired or have left the sector in search of a better life. I really don't know if the teaching proffession in WA has enough left to take on another fight like this. I imagine it is similar in many other states as well. At least the national standards testing has forced some welcome change and it appears to be going in a big circle all on it's own. Problem is that there are a lot of people (read your children) that have received a substandard level of education in the last 15 or so years, all in the name of a bunch of misguided do gooders. Makes me very angry.

Mark

[marki]

You hit the nail on the head Rob. Imagine if the masses where well educated, the politicians would have to do their jobs properly.

Mark

[AndrewJ]

I reckon everyone needs to reread Asimovs Foundation trilogy
( of seven :shrug:???? )
IMHO it was an exceedingly prescient view of humanity.
We are just starting to enter the age of the priests.
The lack of knowledge on how things operate ( including language )
means those who dont understand eventually become slaves to those that do.

Andrew

[renormalised]

You could be right, Steven, but I don't think so. The reason why education has gone down the drain is because our Western societies have become fat, lazy, ignorant and stupid. We take no responsibility for own own lives, the education of our children (or anything else, for that matter) and just seem to feed off this all encompassing need to be entertained and sated immediately...without question. Just like all the other civilisations before it, our present society here in the West is going down hill fast and no one is doing a thing about it. Pollies don't care...makes it easier for them to lord it over everyone if they're all a mob of idiots with attention spans of gnats. What they fail to realise is when societies go out the window, they're usually the ones to suffer the most. They never learn from history, mainly because they can't get their heads extricated from their rear ends long enough to smell the fresh air.

[marki]

Don't forget we have also had a very long period of strong economical growth and abundant jobs for all. When I try to get kids to realise the importance of education the answer is usually pffftt, my dad left school when he was 14 - 16 and we live in a big house with a pool, have 3 squillion cars, a boat ........ so why should I bother. As short sighted as it may seem they are right for the here and now. This has also led to totally egocentric behaviour in which any thought of national unity or the betterment of the collective are not even considered. Like the Romans before us, we are decaying into a spent force.

Mark

[sjastro]

Although my comment was partly tongue in cheek it was primarily motivated by an article I read a few years ago on the entrance exam for potential commissioned officers in the US military during the early 20th century.

The IQ based test produced a suitable quota of candidates for training as officers.

The US military noted as successive generations took the test there was a progressive decline in the number of suitable candidates. By todays standards only a small percentage would progress compared to the original quota.

And remember anyone taking the test was sufficiently motivated......

Steven

[matt]

You'd have me on your side, for starters.

It'd make all the news bulletins for which I have control and broadcast.

Enough's enough.

The problem is, are you likely to go as far as to suggest that there are a lot of teachers currently in the system who might find themselves 'moved along' due to their lack of ability and knowledge?

A lot of these sub-standard teachers got in through the back door when standards and entry marks were dropped disastrously low to boost teachers ranks back in the early to mid 80s.

Do we just shuffle the pieces around the board or address this core issue?

[pmrid]

I lived in Cunnamulla many moons ago (SW Qld) where the locala paper came out weekely and was nicknamed "The 3-minute silence" because it wasd delivered to the local RSL first on Wednesday afternoon at 6.00 p.m. where all assembled read in from cover to cover in 3 minutes.

But to the point of this thread, the english teacher at the locala school used to set the children the task for homework, of correcting the spelling and grammar in the latest edition of the 3-Minute Silence. It was that bad.

Peter

[matt]

Gee...I'm shocked that the local paper at Cunnamulla would be something of a disappointment. Who would have thought!!!:rolleyes:

A lot of those local (small) newspapers in regional towns are owned/run/put together by people like local councillors or business people without a skerrick of journalism or layout training, and a team of volunteers or part-timers.

Still...that's what a Citizen's Gazette is all about. Getting and having a go:lol::lol:

[renormalised]

That's great to hear that someone in the media actually cares enough to make it known that we're going downhill in terms of our standards of education:)

Those sub standard teachers...send those that want to learn back to school themselves, the rest...sack. They're not worth keeping on and they're only doing a disservice to our kids. However, I would be very selective about who I kept and those I sacked. I'd say only 5-10% are worth keeping.

[matt]

My attitude is similar to yours.

As harsh as it sounds, I'd go through our teaching stocks with a big broom. Those who are good enough will be retained, the rest given an option to get up to scratch or move on.

In the meantime the pendulum needs to swing back. We need to make the rewards far greater and a career as an educator far more attractive to the right people. Make the teaching profession the respected and highly remunerated profession it once was.

But...the demands will be proportionally higher. You'll need to score a high mark at high school to study teaching. You'll need excellent marks to graduate and become a teacher. The two go hand in hand.

We should never have 'dumbed down' the profession of teaching.

That probably sounds harsh, but it's only going to be a radical approach to the current problem which will solve such endemic failure.

[renormalised]

This is my philosophy...if you're going to be teaching a subject, then you should be proficient and have experience in that subject. So, if you're going to teach science, for example, then you should be a physicist, chemist, biologist, geologist etc etc. How can you teach a subject when the only knowledge and experience you've got consists of 3 or 4 semesters of study at Uni. You can't...you barely know enough to cover the subject yourself let alone be able to pass what knowledge you have onto others!!!. You should, at least, have a degree in the field you want to teach, preferably post graduate qualifications and some experience in your field if possible. But, at the very least, a degree. Not a BEd with a smattering of study in your field of choice. That's a complete and utter waste of time. Teachers should have a BSc or BA or BBus or LLB etc, then do a course of about a year or so long to get the teaching qualifications...like a diploma or post grad BEd. That way, we might actually get teachers that know their subjects.

[matt]

Indeed, Carl.

Although I'm not so sure you need individuals of such high training and qualification to teach littlies!!!:lol:

[renormalised]

I totally agree with you, 200%. Teachers should be one of the most highly paid professions, yet they get paid a pittance. No wonder most don't give a stuff about their jobs. Or, why many top quality graduates aren't drawn to the job. I think if you made the incentives to become a teacher attractive enough, you'd get quite a few people wanting to pass on their knowledge to the kids.

It should also be the same for University academics...they're not exactly all that well off themselves, or compensated to the level that they should be.

[renormalised]

I was speaking more from a perspective of high school education. Although, I believe that the littlies should also have top quality teachers as well. It's the most important time of their lives, where all their later habits of learning are formed. It's like the old Jewish proverb..."give me the boy and I'll have the man". Catch them early in their education, and you'll develop lifelong learners. People who'll actually be well educated and functioning members of society.

[matt]

Indeed. And I certainly was not suggesting anything short of excellent teachers for young students.

It's is, as you say, a crucial time in their lives to learn either good or bad habits.

I believe teachers of littlies require certain other intangible but equally important qualities.

Apart form possessing academic prowess, they need to have the ability to help 'socialise' little people and endorse the lessons of life that their parents are (hopefully) instilling at home. They need to encourage and nurture, inspire and support...but also occasionally chastise and correct.

A very different creature...is our early childhood teacher, but very important in the grand scheme of things and we should be a lot more selective than we currently are, when it comes to who we choose to shape the young minds of future generations.

[kinetic]

Here is an anecdote that might give you some food for thought.
Maybe not.....might get lost in the noise...

When my daughter was in pre-school she started to develop the
ability to write her own name.
Apparently that is one of the 'milestones' of completing 'Kindy'
Spell and write your own name and tie your shoelaces.

Well it seemed to come to her in just a few days....one day
she couldn't write it, next day she could do it straight off the bat.

But it was all backwards!. Completely and perfectly formed letters,
including a capital at the start, but backwards!
This freaked mum and dad out a bit. We thought we had a child
from the Exorcist movie :)

So we carefully and quietly told her how to write it forwards.
She then did it perfectly forwards, straight off. She could, back then,
actually write it just as clearly with both hands as well.

For a few weeks this went to and fro, from writing it forwards one
day, to writing it backwards another (by accident).

A teacher then told us that this is very common in pre-schoolers.

From my way of thinking this implies to me that we put blinkers
on kids at this crucial stage and disable or lock out a huge potential
of them perceiving their world. Just imagine what else a kid could
possibly do if this ability was nurtured instead of cut off.

Steve

[matt]

Indeed food for thought, Steve.

Nurturing is such a big thing for kids.

I guess there's a fine line, though, eh?

Whilst none of us likes the idea of stomping all over individual creativity and those with latent 'special' gifts, there still needs to be a commitment to offering a framework in which people can grow and express themselves.

The basics still need to apply, and kids still need to learn their ABCs and times tables etc... otherwise it's all just a bit random.

The trick is how we get them to develop along parallel lines. That is, getting across all the stuff they 'need' to learn, while still developing or retaining their 'special' side.

Cheers

[marki]

I am all for that as long as I can go through your profession and clean out who ever fails to meet my standards as well. Fact is most folks having attended school think they know something about education when in reallity they couldn't find their bums with a map, compass and GPS. Most teachers have very high IQ's for what it's worth (bugger all) and know their area's well. The problem is the loss of control over what they are allowed to teach. Business and other interest groups have the majority say over what your children are taught and to not follow orders so to speak means loss of funding..... Educators can scream as much as they want but until parents and other interest groups come on board nothing will get done. The governments see schools as a cheap day care centre and until this attitude is forced to change your children will suffer.

Another problem is that most parents don't give a toss. All education should be done at school. Sorry to burst that bubble but you as parents are the primary educators of your children. Spend some time teaching them to read and write before they go to school. Educate your selves so you can help them as they learn. We are in classes with up to 32 kids. We cannot even spend 2 minutes per hour with your child. Sobbering thoughts indeed but that is the nature of the beast.

Mark

[FredSnerd]

Thank God it will be the young and not the old who will take us into the future. I suppose it makes perfect sense really. All those years have fashioned our brain in a certain way and re arranging it to see and deal with the new challenges of the day just gets progressively harder and harder.

[matt]

Not a problem. Sounds good to me. Let's do the same in all professions.

A topic for another thread, perhaps?

But while we're discussing spelling and those responsible for teaching of said topic...ie teachers....let's stick to discussing them for now, eh?

And let's make this about a set of established, commonly accepted standards... not "my standards".

Cheers.

[marki]

Carl that is exactly what happens. I have never met a science teacher with a BEd alone. All I have met have at the very least a BSc. Most have honours, some have masters and a few have Phd's (in their specialist areas not education). All my science work mates have experience in their relative fields and even my boss (the physics guru) used to teach ballistics to the British and Saudi armed forces. For every raw science graduate moving into education there there would be at least 4 older seasoned professionals. Our last new recruit has a Phd in marine biology and has spent the last 15 years doing research in her field. She is a spritley 40 years young.

Mark

[marki]

Matt, in WA we have a proffessional teachers association which governs the standards for teachers (West Australian College of Teaching). This body has power under law to dictate and direct teacher QAQC. There are very stict protocals for both qualification and on going renewal. Not sure what the other states have done.

Mark

[matt]

Hi Mark. I'd say it'd be similar in all States.

And I reckon it's in this direction we need to be looking.

For starters, I'm not comfortable with this 'Police policing the Police' approach when it comes to setting standards and qualifications for teachers.

Anyway...I'm off to have a beer and relax a bit for a Saturday night;)

[renormalised]

I have. I've met quite a few and none of them could teach it effectively or with any authority. The ones that could teach science well did have science degrees, but even quite a few of them taught from books that were sub standard. Some of the textbooks I've seen for science in schools have a lot left to be desired. But, unfortunately, that's what the curriculum sets down as the books to be used.

[renormalised]

Cryptographer in the making:D:D

Or an expert linguist:D:D

Or a top line scientist (anyone who can write backwards can understand the mathematical scrawl I've seen I've seen in textbooks:P:D)

[DJDD]

I suspect a few of those who have replied have children and are concerned about your children's education.

so, after reading and responding to this thread lamenting the state of our education system, how many of you will be writing to your federal or state members of parliament demanding some action? whether it be to increase teacher's salary, entry requirements, improve the teaching of spelling/grammar, etc.

or perhaps consider changing careers to teaching so that you can help improve the quality of education in our country...


:)

[marki]

Matt it is made of a board of which only 9 of the 20 places can be filled by elected teachers. There is quite a wide representation in the mix. Perhaps we should also look at other bodies, e.g. lawyers policing lawyers and doctors policing doctors. In reality it is those in the profession that are best qualified to make such judgments.

Mark

[marki]

Carl I don't rely on textbooks, they are a resource not the course. I spend hours writing stuff for my kids and only use the text for backup. The current year 12 chem text in WA is excellent but the year 11 text is utter crap. I can see myself writing my own shortly, I am nearly there in any case. The BEd might be a QLD thing as I cannot remember meeting a science teacher who did not at least have a BSc in the past 15 years. I know some states will not allow you teach unless you have a BEd so I guess they reap the rewards of having under qualified folk teaching specialist subjects. In any case a BEd should require completion of a major in whatever the teacher is going to specialise in and I believe that to be the case. Over here even the arts folks tend to have a degree in their specialist area. Most do a grad Dip Ed before moving into teaching.

Mark

[ngcles]

Hi All,

Seems though the discussion has leaned toward teaching standards I'll relate an incident that happened in early 2006 to my one and only daughter then attending the local high school.

It is also related in this 2008 thread here:

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=32560&highlight=Sedna

where science educational standards issues are discussed. There is also an interesting story there from David (astraltraveller) that bears reading, but here is my one:

My daughter did astronomy as part of her "comprehensive" education two years ago at a large public high school in southern Sydney in Yr 10 2006.

Of course, she didn't let Dad know she was doing astronomy in science, she didn't want me looking over her shoulder at what she was doing. But ...

One day near the end of the section (April or May I think) she came home and asked:

"Dad, Sedna isn't a planet, is it?" "No it isn't" I replied ... "Why do you ask?" (privately I was very proud that she knew that despite her "apparent" disinterest in astronomy).

"Well, we were taught today that it was a planet and I asked the teacher whether she was sure and the teacher said she was".

"Hmmm ... well the teacher is wrong I'm sorry."

"Yep I told her that it was wrong and that she ought to check it out, and then the teacher said it would be in the exam at the end of the week and that if I answer that Sedna is not a planet, I will be marked incorrect and loose the marks. What should I do?"

At this point I should point out that I have a reserved, well-mannered and respectful daughter who did not and would not have said any of this in a hostile manner. She was (and still is in her 1st year at Uni now) a top student -- straight As.

Well that wasn't hard.

I told her to go into the exam and give the correct answer and if anything comes of it, I would deal with it. I also armed her with print-outs of several pages from the IAU website on the status of Sedna definitively confirming its KBO/non-planet status by the only body that has authority to make pronouncements on the subject.

She did the exam. She took Dad's advice. She was marked wrong.

After the exam, she (privately) took the point up with the teacher and produced the IAU documents that conclusively proved the point in her favour.

The teachers response was (can you guess??):

(a) Oh yes, I see you are right. I'll fix it right away. Thanks for putting me straight.

(b) The curriculum documents clearly instruct that Sedna is the 10th planet in the solar-system. It is the only answer I can accept. What the IAU says is irrelevant.

Yep you guessed it, b.

Luckily parent-teacher night was the next week. It was an interesting conversation we touched firstly on the issue of the status of Sedna. The teacher asked "Well what makes you an authority on the subject?" -- so I told her.

Then, we discussed the absolute authority of the IAU on the issue of nomenclature (where she expressed considerable doubt about whether that could possibly be correct given the content of the curriculum documents). I then showed her again the print-out of the IAU web page that explicity states that Sedna is not a planet.

Following this, we had a bit of a "fireside chat" over the role of the teacher, the importance of teaching factually correct material and lastly upon scientific method.

The marks were restored.

Was the correct material ever taught? Who knows. I'll bet all my daughter's classmates are still under the impression Sedna is a planet.

A sad but true story.


Best,

Les D

[marki]

That is a very silly teacher indeed Les. It would not happen in my classroom. I encourage my kids to fight for every mark (1/2 marks included). It kind of goes like this. I write the test, they sit the test, I mark the test, they get it back. I go through the answers then we fight for fifty minutes over who got it right :D. I love this part of the process as it shows the kids have a passion for the subject and have done their homework. If they can show me to be wrong (and they do) I award bonus points for the question. As for sylabus statements that are factually incorrect, they will be picked up and the relevent body notified to change it. You cannot teach a subject at the upper levels if you don't know your stuff and I have seen changes made to sylabus statements on a number of occassions as a result of complaints by teachers.

Mark

[bojan]

Silly teacher, yes..
But, imagine one day someone somewhere high in educational authority hierarchy decides the ID is a valid theory, that it deserves the chance and then, this monstrosity sneaks into the system.
Teachers like that one (and I bet many others) would blindly (more or less) follow curriculum documents (or else... they would be out of job).
It would require much more than just a chat by the fireplace to restore marks (like that court process in the States.. And I am pretty sure this issue is not over yet).
We all know how unpredictable the legal processes may be sometimes. And judges will not base their decisions on scientific truth.. the decision may be based on scientifically totally irrelevant legal details.

[Fossil]

For what it's worth, I believe there is far too much importance placed on qualifications and too little placed on experience. I, for one, would much rather listen to somebody who knows what they are talking about rather than somebody who is 'qualified'.
There are countless examples where 'experts' have decided what course of action should be taken, with no regard given to the opinions of people who knew what they were talking about. The Canberra bushfire disaster is a perfect example. The people in charge were all experts, qualified in bush fires and fire management, and 'managed' one of the worst disasters to ever hit Canberra. Meanwhile, there were all the people who knew what they were doing, and knew what they were talking about, but were not qualified, so were not considered experts and were subsequently ignored. The fact that some of these people had lived on the land and been members of the local bush fire brigades for most of their lives was irrelevant. One of these people suggested that a fire break should be established around a rural township that was under threat, but was over-ruled by the experts who said it wasn't necessary. Out of frustration he took his crew and established the firebreaks that he had suggested, for which he was roundly criticised for disobeying the experts. These firebreaks were the only thing that saved his township.
I believe the pendulum needs to swing back a little bit, away from qualifications and towards common sense and experience.
I am not suggesting that qualifications are not necessary, just that qualifications can be gained from places other than a book.

[OneOfOne]

I couldn't agree more on this point either. My formal qualifications are a certificate of technology in electronics I finished in 1979. I was working at one stage with an electronics engineer about 15 years my senior who had given me the task of testing a circuit he had designed. After a lot of testing I couldn't get it to work and explained my theory of why it wasn't working. His explanation was that he had calculated all of the poles of the filter, bandwidth etc and that it would work. Eventually, I made my modification and it worked. He couldn't understand why it needed to be changed, but could see it would only work with my modification (I guess he thought "what would a 20 year old techo know").

I always say "an education doen't make you right, hopefully just more likely". Over the years I have worked with a number of people with enough letters after their name they need an appendix on their business card. Most have been very clever people, but some have been unable to see the possibility of them being wrong. An education prepares you and your mind for a lifetime of experiences, and in the end it is your experiences that count the most.

[matt]

Hi...and I agree. Although I do strongly believe formal qualifications are essential in the teaching profession.

It's great to have all that terrific life experience and knowledge, but it counts for little if you don't know how to impart it in a structured and cohesive way.

I'm not a teacher, but I'm certain there's a lot to know about how to actually 'teach'. That's the value, to me anyway, of the years techers spend at school and Uni learning their 'craft'.

[DJDD]

I can understand a knowledgeable parent's frustration with teachers that just follow the proscribed texts/answers, however, would it not be a good idea to raise it with the principal? Or send letters to the Education dept for your state? Maybe a letter to the minister for your region?

perhaps that is the only way to get action.

When errors are found then either the textbook needs to be changed (probably one or two years down the track) or an addendum provided by way of simple print outs, even if it is only for the next year's class...

getting accurate information to schools and classrooms cannot be that hard in the age of information technology.


There are several thousand members on IIS- maybe get together and make a petition... :)

or perhaps parents do kick up a stink and the media just does not report it...? :shrug:

[renormalised]

Well, that makes you a good teacher in my books. Quite frankly, there are a great many textbooks that have a lot left to be desired. I've seen some pretty woeful textbooks in my time as well. It's a wonder they even got through the editing process at the publishers. Quite a few of the science teachers I know just went through uni with a straight BEd where they majored in a science subject (that's 3-4 semesters worth of science subjects), but that's not near enough to be able to competently teach science. Like we've discussed, you should have a degree in the field you want to teach. After that, then do your teaching qualifications. Then you should be paid well as a teacher, much more than what you get paid now. That way, they'll get specialist teachers for those subjects.

[dpastern]

What's the use? Not too sound defeatist, but your local MP doesn't give a squat about you. All they care about is getting Ten years as a MP so they quality for a nice juicy pension.

The educational system in at least 2 states (NSW & QLD) has went downhill over the past 20 odd years. One can only notice this by looking at todays youth - who have horrid spelling, grammar, and cannot count for the love of life. These are the basics. If they cannot get the basics right, God help them when it comes to more complex educational subjects.

You can have all of the educational degrees you like, and still be a useless teacher. They are not the only mark of ability. I compare this to the many that I see with computer science degrees, who couldn't troubleshoot a problem if their lives depended on it. Hell, they don't even seem to teach networking skills as part of the basic computer science degree!

My advice to teachers is to:

1) remove DVDs/Videos when it comes to English subjects. Make the kids actually read and comprehend the literature

2) remove calculators. Make them use slide rules, make them think and use their brains for maths.

3) Ban mobile phones from school premises. Sorry, but there's no need for a kid to have such a device. For all those that would disagree with me - if they're so critical, how the hell did I, and many others of my generation and older, survive without one? mmm? Care to answer that one?

4) Ban the Internet @ school. Let them research using books. Actual books. Too many kids are copying/pasting whole paragraphs from the Internet and becoming adept at being parrots. They do not comprehend what they are studying, they simply parrot phrases. This is again, a major problem with the modern degree imho, and probably half the reason why most modern teachers are failures imho.

I'm more interested in fixing the problems than twiddling my thumbs. Unfortunately, politicians are thumb twiddlers. Nothing more, and nothing less.

Dave

[dpastern]

Just to add to my views on politicians, there's this little gem of a joke:



Dave

[renormalised]

Classic:D:D

[renormalised]

Well, that sums up my local federal member...Peter Lindsay. Hopeless moron. Claims everything that's not his ideas as being his. Then when something good does appear that the other mob has come up with, he's dead set against it. Nothing more than a political opportunist. I've got quite a few stories about him, apart from the political ones.

[dpastern]

Yeah well...there are ways of fixing this mess up, but sadly, none of the current political parties are even remotely interested in doing the right thing by their constituents. All they care about is money. We'd need a new party with a majority in both the house of representatives and the house of senate. One to introduce the laws, the next to approve them. Telstra and banks would be on my hit list as well. Oh, and doctors and dentists. Add lawyers to the list as well. Add large corporations and rich buggers as well to the list whilst I'm at it. Oh yes, there'd be a world of hurt for a lot of areas as far as I'm concerned.

Dave

[renormalised]

Tried that....I was the VP of a political party here in QLD and I was in the process of sending it national. Didn't work in the end...same old story, too many people near the top wanting power, too much ambition and back stabbing. I ended up leaving...no matter what I did to get things going I always found obstacles in the way and I just didn't want to deal with the dishonesty and backstabbing. You try to do the right thing and you get taken down, and quite frankly I didn't want to play their games. How can you do the work you're supposed to do when the rest of the executive of the party you're in is always playing power games. I probably could've done the same, but I'm not that type of person. I tried to get things organised, but always had someone undermining me.

I can tell you now, it's not worth it unless you can find people that are decent enough as people and that will work for the greater good and not themselves. Never trust lawyers (funny I should say that, I have friends who are lawyers!!), no matter what they say or do where politics is concerned. No, in politics, you have no friends and the only person you can rely on is yourself. Although, politicians can't even do that, for the most part. 90% of the time they compromise their own ethics if it means more money and/or power.

[marki]

Dave, I agree with some of your sentiments but here are the arguments that would be presented against your line of thought.

1) English students must study all forms of communication if they are to be prepared for the modern world. That incudes texts, poetry, classics, media, film etc. To remove any one of these would be hindering their understanding of the world they live in. Visual forms of communication are by far the most common and persuasive so why would you remove them? Bit like taking the plus sign out of maths.

2) Calculators have given many kids the opportunity to do maths that they could never have done otherwise. The level of maths taught at a high school level is much higher then when you and I went to school. For example the calculus teacher at my school recently set his class an investigation in which they had to use partial differentails to solve the problem and the kids managed quite well. I have a number of these kids in my chem class and they can count very well. When I mark their tests the calculations section no matter how much I tie them into knots are always perfect. As an aside maths courses in WA have both calculator and non-calculator components and the kids can only use one for part of their exam. I personally hate number crunching, it is not a great skill, it is mundane and boring. Better they learn application as theoretical maths is only good as a tool for science :P (sorry Rob).

3) Mobile phones should be crushed at the gate before entry. They are a huge problem. Unfortunately most parents think they are essential and it's a battle we cannot win.

4) Kids who cut and paste straight off the internet are easy to catch out. Teachers are well aware of the writing ability and level of expression of their students and the ones that try it are genrally very lazy (the biggest problem in education in my book). All one has to do is google the search phrase and the first hit is usually the item the student has used. We also make them reference all sources which we check. At my school plagiarism and collusion are serious matters and the kids will only try it once. They get an instant zero for the assessment and have to research another question which must be submitted in full. They will recieve no credit for this one either and they genrally have to complete the makeup assignment in after school detention. Considering the resources available in most school libraries it would be criminal to remove the net as a research tool. It's part of the modern world and kids need to know how to get the most from it including sorting the @#$% from the clay.

Mark

[dpastern]

Yes, I realise this Carl. This is why I keep saying that there is no hope for us as a species. We can't even treat each other nice, how are we supposed to treat other species and our environment nice?

I know this sounds defeatist, but as I said to someone on Friday @ work - I'd rather be a realistist and admit when something is broken, than live life with false optimism. False optimism is growing, and it's the bane of our society. When something is broken, it IS broken. Saying it isn't broken and hoping it'll go away *doesn't* fix the problem. Sadly, too many people live with false optimism in todays' society. In reality, it's the too hard basket, but people don't want to admit it.

Dave

[dpastern]

1) If that is the case, how did English students survive before TV and Video (let alone DVD)?

2) same as with point 1) - how did advanced Maths students do Calculas before Calculators? Hell, Sir Isaac Newton managed it all 300 years ago!

3) Agreed. And Schools can, and should, ban them. If all schools ban mobiles, what will parents do? Don't give me any of this kid's safety BS or sexual predator BS. Kids for many years managed without mobile phones. Modern kids are lazy, technology driven beasts, and it's NOT healthy for them, nor society. We're seeing the tip of the iceberg now, in a 100 years it's going to be a LOT worse. It makes me glad that I've probably got 30-40 years left.

4) Many kids evade getting caught for plagiarism. Many teachers don't care. Again, kids survived for many years with computers and Internet. If they could do it then, then they can do it now. I guess I'm a bit like Giles in BTVS - computers aren't tangible. Books are. Call me old fashioned, but we're far too reliant on technology, especially children.

Obesity with children? Well, most parents are becoming too lazy to encourage their children to be active. Kids with Playstations, Wiis, Xboxes, TVs, Computers are becoming a plague. Parents too busy to cook decent meals, so they live on take away. There are reasons for this, and sadly, it's all derived from greed [and money].

As a society, we're broken.

Dave

[marki]

Carl, politics always attracts the same type of person no matter how noble the original ideas may have been. We need to find a way to decrease their influence and power and get them doing what they are supposed to do, represent the people who elected them.

Mark

[marki]

1) The whole purpose of education is to prepare young people to survive in the world they inherit. Removing a major component based on ideals is plain silly.

2) In his day there were about a dozen people capable of doing basic calculus. Things have moved on and now millions of people have the ability to contribute to human understanding through complex maths. If you trully hold this as a plausable argument the I suggest you switch off your computer go out the back and find a big flat piece of slate and start carving. If you read a little history on many of the greats you will find they all had one pet hate and that was repetative mindless number crunching. I am sure Newton would have jumped at the chance to use modern technology to help him solve problems.

3) Agreed.

4) Wish we had enough books to cover all we want the kids to learn but we don't. The internet is a necessary evil.

Mark

[DJDD]

I agree with the rest of your comments but this one I find hard to accept.

Isn't there a course for visual communication in schools? it is there that students could critically review a movie/dvd/etc.

We have a 19-year old working for us and he did not study any novels just the movie adaptations. I still cannot believe that! Of course, his spelling, use of grammar, writing skills, etc. are terrible. I find that I am teaching him how to write simple letters/emails. Shoul that not be done at school/home?

My wife did not study English in Years 11 and 12 but read voraciously and has a wider vocabulary, is wider read, and speaks/writes/understands English much better than most. And English was not spoken at home.

I submit, based upon the above, that studying a DVD is not the same as studying novels, etc., and that reading instead of watching movies is the best way to improve the use of English by students.

[marki]

I don't know what they are doing over your way but here students must have a good working knowledge of all types of media and as such study all forms. If all your english teachers do is show video's then you have a serious problem. We do not have a visual communications course over here. It is all covered in general english. We do have another course (english literature) in which the focus is the study of the classics and is taken by the more able students. The problem with lit is that it always gets gets scaled down and the students recieve a lower TER even though the level of difficulty is higher. Go figure.

Mark

[renormalised]

The only way to do that is to have the general populace get more involved in the political process...make it a true democracy, like back in Ancient Athens. Not this sham they call "democracy", which it most certainly isn't. The politicians need to be fully accountable to the people and the political party system abolished. We could go on about this till the cows come home, but this isn't the thread to really be discussing it, except as a short sideline. Suffice to say I think we'd ll have very strong opinions and ideas about this:D

[dpastern]

Exactly.

As to maths, tell me, how did my maths teacher, and those of his generation learn Calculas? Why did he, with 30 years of teaching experience, think that calculators were bad, were introducing dumb students?

Why is it that most kids cannot add up, even basic maths? If they don't have a calculator, or a PC, they're lost. I find it amusing that even those doing accounts style roles are lost with a calculator! Even for basic Maths. I'm no genius, but I'm fully capable of basic Maths in my head, on the fly. Do they even teach long division in primary school these days? We now have MIS (Maths in society, aka dummies math), at least in the HSC in NSW. It might have changed names in the 20+ years since I left school. Giving high school students the option of opting out of normal maths curriculums, and chilling out doing basic dummy maths (which they should have been able to do by the time they leave primary school I might add) is not smart. Make them use their brains, it's the *only* way to learn.

Similarly, EMail and Internet is creating kids who are unable to converse with others in face to face situations, with poor interpersonal skills.

Some may have misunderstood my intentions here - technology is great, but for crying out loud, make sure the kids can do it the old fashioned way before you allow them to use technology and take short cuts!

Dave

[marki]

Dave I think you are looking into your memories of school with rosy glasses on. There have always been kids who struggle with even the most basic maths. In my day we were split into 4 groups, advanced, intermeadiate, elementry and basic. From memory there was 1 advanced class with 15 of us, 1 intermeadiate class, 3 elementry classes and 3 basic classes. They still teach times tables and basic mental maths and arithmetic in primary (over here at least) but the use of calculators has allowed many students who would have in the "good old days" been relegated to the scrap heap to learn the difference between AM and PM, to gain some ability in maths. Artificial means? yes. Can they work out the answer? Yes. Do they have some confidence in maths? yes. personally I do not see the problem. The more capable students will go on to more difficult concepts whilst the least capable will be able to do something. It's win win in my book.

Mark

[astroron]

It looks like the tenant of this thread has gone out the window, and is now just education bashing and defence.

[matt]

I don't agree with you, Ron. Not at all, on this.

How can we have a discussion about spelling and ignore an issue such as education which is at the very core of the debate.

That's akin to discussing relativity and leaving out a discussion on the nature of light!...for want of a better analogy;)

[marki]

Ron, Matt is dead right on this one. Education is at the heart of this debate. The problem I have is politicians, media, parents and every man and his dog thinks they can do a better job (well get in there and have a go). I am simply answering the critics and have yet to see an original idea on this thread. If someone has the real answers I would certainly like to know. The best I can offer is as parents you need to take responsibility for the education of your children, you are the primary educator.... As teachers we would love to sit down and spend an hour or two with each child to make sure they understand but quite frankly that is never going to be a reality. If you can not do it yourself then you need to be paying for tutors that can do it for you. Expensive yes which is why it will never happen in mass education but a vital investment in your childs future. Remember mass education is more about conditioning each generation to accept their position in the ants nest. We rip kids out of their mothers arms at 4, 5 or 6 years old and get to work making sure they will be productive little worker ants. If I had it my way I would eliminate primary school altogether and give kids a chance to just be kids. When they are 12 or 13 and ready to go, education would start. As I have said previously we are seen as a glorified baby sitting agency and you only have to look at parents reactions when we send them home for one reason or another to work that out.

Mark

[matt]

No, Mark....this is where you're wrong.

As a member of the media, I don't think I can do a better job. Certainly not a better job than the very small percentage of teachers whom I would hold in very high regard.

I think with a minimum of training, however, I could do at least 'as good' a job as perhaps many teachers in the system these days teaching English and Media Studies.

What I certainly believe is that, speaking generally, standards have fallen to a critical level and something needs to be done to address the slide.

And as a member of the media...I sympathise with your sentiments. Every man, woman and armchair commentator alive reckons they can do a better job than most journalists!!!;):)

[renormalised]

It's not about original or wonderous ideas of how to educate people, it's about what you expounded there, Mark. Primarily, it's the parents responsibility to teach their kids when they're young and make sure they're being taught properly. Teachers are there to disseminate knowledge and to instruct the children in the methods of how to use that knowledge. However, a good teacher will also also take some responsibility in the education of those children as well, making sure they understand what's being taught. Yes, they can't cater to every kid's needs and problems, however they can assist the parents of those kids in doing so. Problem is, these days, most parents hardly take any interest in their kids' education at all...except for the occasional P & T night and even then they sit there with blank expressions on their faces. Most are "too busy" with work and such to do so. Well they should look at themselves and prioritise their lives better. Yes, money is important, but your kids and family are even more so. It all comes back to our society and how it operates...it's messed up. It's the big chase for the almighty dollar and damn anyone or anything that gets in the way.

[marki]

Matt, standards have both fallen and risen depending on where you look. The kids do maths that used to be considered university level only. Chemistry is the same as when I went to school. English has become sociology and there is much less emphasis on the 3 R's and more on the ability to analyse and form an argument supported by work of previous authors. Physics has been contextualised and much of the math removed. Why, not enough girls were taking up engineering so they changed the sylabus to suit what they thought girls would be interested in. This has failed, no more females take up the subject and boys can't write essays, their one out (maths) has been taken away from them. Society and environment is dead, kids just don't care anymore. Much of this has stemmed from silly academic claptrap being forced into schools. They want kids to be working at abstract levels of thinking without giving them a chance to learn the basics. If you read some of the english assignments my kids have to do you would cringe, I know I do. I often sit down with my chem kids and a dictionary after class. Together we try to work out what they have been asked to do in english.

Mark

[renormalised]

They may do maths once considered university level, but how many of them really understand it?? Not many, I would imagine. It also doesn't matter how well you can debate a point in English (or any other subject) if you can't express yourself clearly and concisely in the written word. Even more staggering, how can you divorce physics from maths??!!!:eyepop: It's the whole basis of the subject!!!!. Great, the kids can explain Newton's Three laws, but can they do the maths to work out how much force, mass or acceleration occurs for any given situation??. They know what light is, but can they derive wavelength and frequency of any given light source?? Maths is fundamental to physics. Society and environment is dead because the kids are assailed by all the nonsense they see on TV and distracted by the crud they sit in front of for hours at a time (xboxes, wii's, playstations etc etc etc). They're only interested in self gratification and mindless nonsense. Then you hit the nail right on the head...the stupid academic claptrap from fools who've spent most of their working lives cooped up in little offices at universities (especially in the U.S.), with no grasp of the reality surrounding them. "Oh, I have this great idea and it's totally applicable to real life...even though I don't have kids (or hardly see mine) and the last time I taught children was 20 years ago (or never)"...that's the sort of nonsense that's ruined education. Unfortunately, the politicians still have these grand ideas about social experimentation, as still do many of those academics, though some have woken up to themselves (the academics, that is).

Mark, you may also need a thesaurus as well, and another dictionary in Swahili, just to understand what the foreign language is you're reading!!!:P:D

[dpastern]

I really have to disagree. The family that I lived with in Sydney had a daughter going through her high school year 11/12 - I would often help her and check her homework etc. It didn't seem any harder, or more involved than when I was at school. Back when I went to school, year 11/12 physics was taught in the first semester of the first year, of Uni. It only got harder.

The problem is that if you give kids an opt out, they'll take it. Everyone is lazy. They'll *only* learn if you *make* them. That's human nature. By removing auto aids, you are forcing them to use their brains, and thus learn. Sure, a small percentage will have issues, they always do, but I think you'll find that the majority of the kids will still learn.

Your comments Mark do not represent the facts - that kids of years ago still managed to learn without auto aids. Ergo, by pure logic, they are not critical to the learning process, and it is possibly to learn without them. Auto aids make kids lazy and dumb. It is not only my opinion, but the opinion of many older people, and several ex teachers that I know.

Dave

[matt]

Well, there you go, Mark.

Perhaps it's time to go back to the 3 Rs and teach them in their purest form, unpolluted with all the neo-educational claptrap.

We can take care of the other stuff like sociology, analysis and argument/debate in their own subjects or minor studies.

Don't water down the basics. Don't fiddle with them to suit the times.

Core is core.:thumbsup:

[renormalised]

One thing that I've found, over the years, and that's a lot of so called "brilliant" students at school can't handle university. They invariably dropout in the first semester or at the end of their first year. The problem is they're so used to having someone look over their shoulder (i.e. the teacher) that they can't handle having to be responsible for their own education. Many of them have not been taught to research properly, nor have they been given the right tools to handle the responsibility of having to do things by themselves. Some manage to pick this up going through their education, but not all of them that do so are the ones with TER/HSC/OP scores of the highest value attainable. Even so, those that can and do manage university don't find it a cakewalk. All, accept those rare cases where the person has eidetic memory (and I knew one, personally...grrrrr:P:D).

[mithrandir]

40 years ago I had to fight with an examiner about giving a 4 unit complex number answer to a 3 unit question. They had marked it wrong because in the 3 unit course complex numbers were not covered and the "proper" answer was there was no solution.

I won eventually, got the extra marks. It made no difference to the results. I'd already topped the school. :)

[marki]

David, if you read my last post you would noticed that I said physics has become contextualised not more difficult. I really doubt you were exposed to partial differentials or maticies or a whole host of other stuff that kids now have to deal with at a high school level noe days, it just was not done. As for old folks (myself included) we always think we were better then the next generation, it's human nature. Ex teachers have very little to add to the debate. Research shows it takes about ten years to burn out all but the most dedicated teachers. They left because they no longer had the passion to teach or were so discontent that they became extremely negative. I have met many like this and will tell you the best place for them is anywhere but a classroom. It is difficult and exhausting work and most cannot hang in there unless they have the best attitude. As for chucking out technology pfffttt, imagine being a carpenter and going to work without your hammer or nailgun. It,s not going to be a productive day. Lack of resources means computer use is minimal in any case. I book the kids into the computer labs about 6 times in any year and I work at what is considered to be a well resourced private school. Contrary to many opinions expressed here, there were just as many stupid people around when I was a kid as there are now. It was not a time of super intellects or any other such thing. Learning used to all about memory but you can teach a parrot to mimic what you say. Knowledge alone is the lowest form of intelligence.

Mark

[marki]

Carl a major problem with uni lecturers is that a large number of them couldn,t teach to save their lives. When I went you did not even need a teaching qualification to lecture and I have some stories I could tell you about that. Academically brilliant but could not communicate. Another problem is that most kids will be lazy and do not want to put in the time it takes to be successful. Why spend 4 years at uni working your guts out when you can do a 3 day course at TAFE in real estate and make 10 times the wage of any degree holder. We had some extensions done at our school recently I remember one time I was on duty on the front oval and looked into the car park. The best car belonged to the brickie.

Mark

[renormalised]

I was...I also had to do calculus (of all types), algebra, full and partial differentiation, co-ordinate geometry, conic section, probs and stats, and quite a few other things I'd rather forget:P:D

As for such maths not being taught many years ago, I've seen my father's school books and some of his old textbooks from school. He was last in school in 1939. Everything you and I mentioned were in those books. He was a maths whiz...never got less than 98% for his exams. Some of the stuff he could work out in his head makes mine spin!!!!.

[renormalised]

Oh, I totally agree with that sentiment!!!. I've seen some atrocious lecturers and I have some rather funny anecdotes about uni lecturers:)

That's the irony of the whole thing...even a TA gets big money. Quite frankly, they're not worth it.