gyroscope2000

Not unlike the woman that discovered her daughter could not write in the traditional cursive penmanship at grade level 8, my second husband and I discovered that our son could not spell words properly at grade level 6. Why? According to our son’s teacher, the idea that any child within the next 20 years would need to learn the proper spelling of a word was absurd. She-the teacher-was not requiring the students to spell their words properly, as she understood perfectly well what each word meant in its phonetically spelled form. Great, and we were worried that our son was slow, possibly stupid, or just lazy and sloppy while preparing a paper of importance to his grades.

Our son is now 29-years-old and his nephew, age 6, is learning to spell in kindergarten and I’m guessing a few thousand teachers grew tired of trying to read a simple sentence. The school system does employee the use of phonics, but they require the child to learn the proper spelling, as well. Not quite the 20 years our son’s teacher predicted, but close enough and her failure to insist that a child spell properly has likely affected many young adults whose shame it was to have attended this woman’s classes.

Teachers that assumed the computer would correct any misspelled word for the ignorant student that did not learn the proper spelling, were correct to some degree. My questions are these. What happens when that child has no computer readily handy to do his thinking for him? What if that student actually has to think for himself, or God forbid, what if the word he cannot spell properly is his own name? Will the existence of a computerized society save him the embarrassment that you failed to explain would occur because you did not feel it was necessary that he learn the basics; reading, writing, and arithmetic?

I feel for the Ms. Davis’ of this new world order where children no longer learn the basics, and worse is the fear that these children will someday eliminate the English language because it has become to hard for their minds to decipher in simple tasks; always relying on their computers. Someday, in the future, the miracle machine might shut down due to lack of electricity and they will be lost until the light returns to guide them through their day. And OMG (abbreviations the new conversation tool), what if the light never returns?

Perhaps, Obama would have served the nation better by addressing his speech to the teachers who are attempting to actually teach children, so that they might be encouraged to approach their fellow teachers with the idea of truly giving children an education.

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