Concerns about children's education

[KristyHall]

Quote:
I was reading Stephen King by third grade

Me too. I love Stephen King's books. His movies, not so much. Doesn't seem to have affected my writing abilities. But then I went to school before standardized testing was all the rage. I graduated back when kids actually had to learn stuff.

It helped me. I have a disability in writing and math. I could read beautifully, and comprehend what Iw as reading easily. But putting a sentence together, and get my punctuation right is not so easy for me. My spelling stinks too.

In school I would order those teach yourself math books over the summer and do the work books to be ready for the next grade, then an hour's home work for math would take me three, and I would arrive early at school for tutoring by what ever teacher who would be kind enough to help me with my home work, just so i could keep up.

I did it because in remedial math, which I qualified for, I was bored. It was too slow. I hated it. I wanted to be in regular math, and was willing to work for it.

 

[HHandbasket]

Quote:
I would like to add to this, however, an alternative viewpoint. I am a stickler for grammar and punctuation as a requirement of my job. When I'm on a forum, I use it as an opportunity to be less formal in my writing, including grammar and punctuation. And I've even been known to start a sentence with the words "and" or "but" and even end it with a preposition! That doesn't mean I am stupid or uneducated. It just means that I am embracing the informality of the forum! Wheeee!

 

[welsummerchicks]

Very interesting all responses. I hope more people will chime in too.

 

[Q9]

Thank you. Now I can rest in the assurance that other people are infuriated as well.

I CANNOT STAND a lack of punctuation. The only thing that annoys me more is text-talk. OH MY GOSH. Is it REALLY that hard to write "Thanks" rather than "thnx?!"

I've never read Stephen King (don't plan to, either - I can't take horror type novels) or J.K. Rowling. I've thought about reading the Harry Potter series just to see what's so great about it. I'm a Tolkien/Lewis fan, myself.

 

[eenie114]

As I've said to many people on here, no apparent effort at punctuation seems downright insulting. You're smart. We KNOW you're smart. So either you don't care about the people who have to decipher what you write, or you don't care about the people who have to decipher what you write.
Now, if children just aren't being TAUGHT these things, that's another matter all together.
-The daughter of a grammer Nazi

Edited because I misspelled. Oh, the irony.

 

[AKsmama]

Quote:
I would like to add to this, however, an alternative viewpoint. I am a stickler for grammar and punctuation as a requirement of my job. When I'm on a forum, I use it as an opportunity to be less formal in my writing, including grammar and punctuation. And I've even been known to start a sentence with the words "and" or "but" and even end it with a preposition! That doesn't mean I am stupid or uneducated. It just means that I am embracing the informality of the forum! Wheeee!

However, you do use punctuation here. Look at what you just wrote. You used commas and periods and an exclamation point, even. There are a lot of people who don't do that much, and then expect other users to decipher what they write. Being informal is ok. Being downright indecipherable, when all anyone has to go on is what is what you write, isn't.

 

[StevenW.]

Quote:
I would like to add to this, however, an alternative viewpoint. I am a stickler for grammar and punctuation as a requirement of my job. When I'm on a forum, I use it as an opportunity to be less formal in my writing, including grammar and punctuation. And I've even been known to start a sentence with the words "and" or "but" and even end it with a preposition! That doesn't mean I am stupid or uneducated. It just means that I am embracing the informality of the forum! Wheeee!

However, you do use punctuation here. Look at what you just wrote. You used commas and periods and an exclamation point, even. There are a lot of people who don't do that much, and then expect other users to decipher what they write. Being informal is ok. Being downright indecipherable, when all anyone has to go on is what is what you write, isn't.

What does that mean? Just because I dont know what that means that I'm not good reader?

 

[StevenW.]

One more thing most of my teachers just want the money they dont give a rip if they teach us or not! If they had a choice of staying home and getting paid they would stay home!

 

[melodie_a]

I sent an email to the Language Arts teacher of my 7th grade daughter today. She is in the academically gifted program but is currently failing his class for the year. We are having serious emotional issues with her this year, so I sent an email asking him about the assignments thus far in the grading period for his class. The grading period started March 24th and there have been no assignments completed so far. I was shocked, over two weeks and no assignments? The email that I sent him was short and to the point, the response I received back blew me away. This is his response to my very professionally written email. I actually made sure it was gramatically correct because it was going to an English teacher. This is from the person who is teaching my child to express herself in writing.

"mrs. albertson ... hello.
since the beginning of the fourth quarter, we have been engaged exclusively in completing our read-aloud and discussion of the final chapters of To Kill A Mockingbird, and there have been no graded assignments since then. beginning next week, we will be working on two short writing assignments related to TKAM ... one will be done in class and the other will be class work as well as home work. The details will be available on the class web page (through school Fusion) and Hannah will receive written instructions and a rubric ...
thanks, "

He didn't even capitilize his own name at the end. I ommitted it for his privacy.

 

[KristyHall]

Quote:
my mother was a bit of a grammar nazi, I use to say "ain't got no" just to annoy her