Having 2 kids in the system, you might take note of this.
My oldest who is now at uni, first of all couldn’t write tidily enough to save his life, this didn’t seem to be a recognisable misdameanor for the system, though it was for me, in my day, it was a criminal offence, however it didn’t seem to be a problem to contemporary thinking. Along with this, his spelling was appalling, again, in my day, mistakes got crossed out, not in this case. They seem to be more interested in the content rather than the way it was presented, but then we got into loggerheads, I would criticise him for his mistakes which the school tended to ignore, and we’re talking of a top local school here.
He is now in his final year at Uni, and his handwriting is still crap but the spelling has improved, he’s doing well so something obviously worked, but then, everything is presented, like this, on a keyboard with spell checks.
The next nuppit going through the system at the moment, at 13, has the same problems, handwriting and spelling is crap, but he’s a clever kid like the other one and will go far, however his basic use of spelling and handwriting are ignored at the expense of his ‘Development’.
I just wanted to say a few thing on what you have said mate.
Your experiences are exactly the same as what I went though my father.
My old man has worked in newspapers since he left school and I don’t think there is a better speller on earth.
He would always get frustrated with me whilst looking through my coursework or home work.
Despite very little effort I was in top sets for most classes and got a very good set of exams which would be enough to get into uni if I chose but I have the worst spelling and handwriting known to man.
After leaving first school it was very rare to get pulled up for spelling mistake by teachers who only worried about the content. Infact only a small percentage of an English exam was on spelling I believe.
I spellcheck every bit of work I do now but even that is not enough for the old man 😮
My hand writing has only suffered more since I have left school and I doubt it will ever be acceptable but since just about all work is done on PC’s what does it matter now?
I don’t think txting is to blame because standard have been slipping for years. Only way it will ever improve is by going back to the basics and we all know that wont happen, what with the ever seemingly diversifying teaching methods and the “best” exams results ever.
Cal
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