Teachers that can't spell

[Nikita]

My son had a teacher who wrote words wrong on the board, and admits he's an atrocious speller. How is the student expected to be better than the master? And how is the teacher expected to discover my son's spelling errors in essays etc if he cant spell himself?
I was on ebay looking for teaching resources and came across a teacher selling teaching aids and homemade readers.  On the list of animal readers was "mere cat".  Meaning Meerkat. So the reader was about "mere cats", with pictures of meerkats...how are kids supposed to learn properly!!
That just drives me nuts!!

[Kappasweet]

Mere cat???      

[nhockaday]

Wasn't it you and me who had this conversation on the forum way back when? I agree, teachers need to know how to spell, unless they're math teachers, then they just need to know how to spell math words 

Spelling and grammar are one of my pet peeves.

[joyMegha]

Once we as parents know something that is happening is not correct, is there someway it can be conveyed to the baby so that he doesnot pick up the same?

Or should we wait for the long term so that he will let go anything wrong he would have picked up?

[Nikita]

nhockaday I remember having a whinge about this yonks ago, but I wasnt going to search thru a pile of old posts to find the thread... but this issue really does make my blood boil. And monkey see monkey do... I've read newspapers with wrong spelling, even novels, and I as a kid assume if it's in print and published it MUST be correct spelling.  As a visual learner I take a snapshot of the word in my brain, and instantly memorise it. And some of the words have been wrong...

[Nikita]

joyMegha... I dont think learned errors just correct themselves.  If a baby sees a word spelled wrongly that's how they'll visualise the word, how they'll recognise the word, and what they'll believe it to correctly be.  So correct errors straight away.

[Nikita]

nhockaday... I have noticed that US people do a naughty grammar thing.  They say something's "real great", instead of "really great". (Need the LY at the end). And even in a old dr seuss book recently, I noticed someone sat "in back"...I thought the opposite of "in front" was behind. See, these things creep into kids picture books and then get accepted as correct. I'm sure I've heard these terms on US kids shows like sesame street.

[nhockaday]

A lot of people in the US use bad grammar. I hope that is one thing that my son doesn't adopt. Plus, we live in the south, so there is a lot of ain't and ya'lls, and people generally don't speak well. I don't think you can really count on DR Suess books to be too grammatically correct though.

[Nikita]

But it was a beginner reader... to teach kids to read... in English. And I remembered where I first heard "in back".. it was an episode of barney on video. I dont think they deliberately put errors in there, to have slang for some reason, I think they genuinely are so used to the way they've been taught to speak they dont realise it's wrong.

[Kimba15]

If teacher's can not spell then I do not see why they are on the government payroll???? We as tax payers particularly in Australia where teachers earn good wages in SA they earn $60000+ a year shouldn't have to pay for 2nd rate teachers.

[Nikita]

Hear, hear.  Or is that.. here, here. If I was using a spell checker it mightnt pick up the error, as the spelling is correct either way. And there's teachers that wouldnt pick up on these errors either. They should be expected to pass literacy tests before being allowed to study education.

[Cristofori]

I feel your pain.   

[appley]

Am I the only one who finds it amusing how replete this thread is with spelling and grammatical errors, or are they intentionally facetious mistakes? If not, the thread title "Teacher's that cant spell" must be peeving everyone! 

[nhockaday]

I wasn't going to say anything 

[hipkids]

One area where I think teacher spelling has become a critical issue is in substitute and bilingual education, especially in low-income urban areas. I taught first grade in the South Bronx (New York City), and was allowed one "prep" period per day. I cannot tell you the number of times I cringed as I watched the prep class (literally, a 45 minute "filler" class period of fluff and coloring pages) teachers write things like "hollyday" and "oxigyn" on the board. This was not, however, unique to only bilingual teachers, though I think that bilingual educators need to be truly bilingual. There were plenty of native-English-speaking teachers who had similar spelling issues. I became convinced that so many educational challenges that children face in low-income areas (vernacular language, spelling and grammatical struggles) are further complicated by less-qualified and emergency-credentialed teachers.

Often times I found it was preferable to lose the prep period, use the prep teacher as a teaching assistant for small group reading, and teach my own lesson. It would take more time to ultimately undo the damage long-term from taking the prep instead of just teaching during that time.

Yes, I see that tax-payer dollars shouldn't go to underqualified teachers. But- it's hard to lure qualified teachers to the areas that really need them, and the teachers that come out of low-income areas are often lured to better paying teaching positions elsewhere.

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