Devolution?

[cbertsch]

I spent over an hour volunteering in Skylar's class this morning, where the first and second graders were working on their spelling. Among the words included in their related but not identical lists were "raindrop," "slapping," "should," and "once." Every child I witnessed got a 100% score on the practice spelling test.

Afterwards, I drove to the U of A in order to meet with my undergraduate students, most of whom are juniors, in order to discuss their papers. Spelling errors abound. "Forever" becomes "for ever," "dandelion" becomes "dandy lion," "trickery" becomes "tricky."

But my favorite error of the day by far was the sorority girl who consistently uses the spelling "women" when she is referring to a single individual: "How rare can a beautiful women be?"

Maybe our nation's obsessions with "standards," which generally leads to excessive busywork and mind-numbing testing regimens, will at least produce one piece of edible fruit. Because I have a hard time imagining that the children in Skylar's class are going to spell as badly at age 20 as the students I'm teaching right now spell.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Eye halve a spelling chequer,
It came with my pea sea.
It plane leigh marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the err roar rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no.
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.

[cbertsch.livejournal.com]

Nothing like English orthography, is there? Unless, of course, one thinks of English ornithology. . .