The other night I attended Ariel’s “Meet the Teachers” night–or, as we call it, Run Around the School Night, because you go from class to class in imitation of your kid’s schedule…except you spend about eight minutes per class as the teacher tries to cram in a description of the entire year’s curriculum.
The English class did not bode well, though. There was a big sign at the front of the class encouraging “INDEPENDANT THOUGHT.” Nothing like seeing a word spelled incorrectly in 30 point type at the front of an English class. The best, though, was the student essay up on the wall in the back in which the 6th grade student wrote how he was choking on some food until his older brother intervened. He wrote, “First my brother punched me in the stomach, and then he gave me the Hemlock maneuver.” Ah yes, the Hemlock maneuver. The good news is, there’s a 100% success rate in stopping choking. The bad news is…
PAD
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Ah, the future of this country.
In 25 years, we will all write with numbers like so:
I h8 that u r 2 4giving!
Something to look foward, right?
Well, its like, you know and he’s all “yeah, whatever” and I go “no way”.
Did you tell the teacher what you do for a living?
I hope nobody thinks that teachers who can’t spell are a new phenomenon.
My first grade teacher taught us that the past tense of “build” was “builded”.
This was in 1962. And not in some backwater hole, either, but in highly-educated, high-tech Silicon Valley To Be.
OMG! Too funny, and too sad at the same time!
Ironic that this complaint is being made on an INTERNET CHAT BOARD! (LOL.) Talk about going to where the sinners are.
Back in the dark times (1977), my English teacher began each class by asking us if “the bell done rang”. Sigh.
At prep school, I corrected my English teacher on the spelling of ‘predictable’ and was promptly told to look up the definition of ‘arrogant’
I forget how I exactly replied, but my parents were in the headmasters office within the hour =D
For crying out loud, PAD. I’m at work here.
First you made me cry with the “independant” anecdote.
And then you made me spit out my coffee with the hemlock thing.
Go easy on us, will you?
Ahh, but see, maybe by spelling the word wrong, the maker of the sign was ironically emphasizing the point of thinking independently.
……..NAH-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H!!
Hooper
The first sign was obviously
a “fill-in-the-blanks”. If you’d
gone up and written “Will not be
tolerated” beneath it, they
probably would’ve given you a cookie or (more fitting) a sucker.
My guess–considering it was typewritten–was that the kid wrote it on a computer and then ran Spellcheck. My guess is that he spelled it something like “Hemlik” and, when he ran Spellcheck, it kicked back “Hemlock” as a suggestion. And the kid, having no idea what Hemlock was, figured the machine knew what it was doing. (For what it’s worth, my Spellcheck doesn’t recognize “Heimlich” either.)
Just think: If Henry Heimlich, inventor of the maneuver, had called it the Henry Maneuver, we wouldn’t have this problem.
PAD
Sorry, but I had to throw one in, too… In the third grade, one of my teachers scolded me for saying the word “run” had only one syllable. According to her, it had two syllables.
Yeah, this is getting too common place… and to see such things in a school, no less. I’m beginning to understand the people who work in corporate offices sending out messages like, “There in the proces of takeing care of that.”
Our city had a fundraising event to buy books and teach people to read. One of their posters contained this phrase:
“Fight Illitercy!”
That one was chosen for the huge billboard right in the center of town.
And how about those folks who put an apostrophe at the end of everything. A few years ago, I saw my first “Happy Holiday’s” sign. Now I see them all the time.
If I say something about it, people just tell me that I’m ultra-sensitive. Besides, language chages and grows, right?
Grrr.
This from people who think making a grocery list is ‘writing.’
Mike Sawin
I feel your pain…may I share mine?
I’m an NIH post-doc, well until Monday (end of my stretch.) A couple of years ago, I saw that two public schools in DC were looking for science fair judges. I signed up immediately.
At one school, half the kids weren’t even at their exhibits. Of the ones who were, 3/4 said, when asked why they did their exhibit, “The teacher told me to.” At the other school, no one was at their exhibits!
It wasn’t all bad. I remember the desalinization exhibit at the first school, where the kids showed imagination, creativity and pride. They had a neighbor down the hall who was re-analyzing published forensics data, and who came across as an aspring grown-up.
Maybe we should all face the fact that GW Bush _is_ representative of modern America. And God will have no mercy on our souls…
When I was working at Chase, they were looking to fill a position that required, among other things, that the applicant have “good writen skills”.
“Maybe we should all face the fact that GW Bush _is_ representative of modern America.”
I don’t think I’d have a problem with everyone obtaining an Ivy League graduate degree.
I’m a graduate (undergrad) of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It’s generally considered one of the “public Ivies”, and in the US News rankings is usually around 25th overall and in the top 3-4 public schools.
About a decade after I left, my sister ended up going to graduate school there. In English. So she TAed freshling composition classes. One time when I was visiting, she showed me the essays from her class. I should note that she was *not* teaching remedial English, English as a second language, or even classes for the jocks.
I couldn’t believe how poorly written and spelled the essays were. My shocked first comment was “How did they get accepted?”. My second comment was to wonder if I could get “Really, he can read and write, honest” stamped on any future transcripts I requested from the school.
\\My guess–considering it was typewritten–was that the kid wrote it on a computer and then ran Spellcheck. My guess is that he spelled it something like “Hemlik” and, when he ran Spellcheck, it kicked back “Hemlock” as a suggestion. And the kid, having no idea what Hemlock was, figured the machine knew what it was doing. (For what it’s worth, my Spellcheck doesn’t recognize “Heimlich” either.)
Just think: If Henry Heimlich, inventor of the maneuver, had called it the Henry Maneuver, we wouldn’t have this problem.
PAD
\\
According to an article I just read, Heimlich Maneuver has been added to the Oxford English Dictionary with the newest printing, so maybe this won’t be a problem soon.
Of course, Jedi and Klingon have been added as well.
-Joe