I've been a poor speller all my life - I bless the little cotton socks of whoever invented the spellchecker every day - but I would never have appreciated having my mistakes ignored. If no one tells you where you're going wrong, how will you ever learn?
Sadly, this is part of a terrible trend in the UK, where there's been a growing tendency among education professionals to let standards slide. We had a vast upset recently when a company which had been given the government contract to mark exam papers botched the entire thing. That lead to the most horrendous stories in the papers - like the teacher who was so disgusted she sent in two examples of English exams. One was beautifully literate, spelt correctly and grammatically perfect throughout. The other was full of grammar and spelling errors and made little sense. Guess which one was awarded the higher mark?
Only recently, too, a question in Parliament queried the low standard of questions in a science exam. One question was "What area of the body does a horse rider's hat protect?" And that was a difficult one! And then the government claims that there's been no dumbing down of exams and it's sheer co-incidence that something like 90% of kids are getting top exam marks.
On a similar note, Stuart - after shaking his head in disgust at this Professor - mentioned how he'd been looking over the application forms which potential recruits to the Fire Brigade had filled in recently. Many of them were filled in using textspeak.
is right, Rona! Makes you despair.
LabRat
