Back in the 70s, my wife and I went to our daughter’s 9th grade open house at her junior high school. Mr. So-and-so gave all the parents the courtesy of showing up wearing a hunting shirt, jeans, and barefoot except for sandals . . . also unshaven. This slob (that’s exactly what I though he looked like), who was on the taxpayers’ payroll, looked like a he had no respect at all for his job or his students’ parents.
He passed out a 4-page handout to the parents. After a brief review of the handout, I found eight (8) grammar errors. I was furious. I teach English and math at a private school for far less pay and benefits than this ba$tard gets. My wife told me not to bring these errors to Mr. Slob’s attention, or he’d take it out on my daughter. So, I sat there just steaming.
When Mr. Hippie told us about their journals that they had to write and turn in each week (my opinions of journals could be the subject of another post). I asked him if he checked them for grammar and spelling errors before he turned them back to the students. “No,” said Mr. Jackass, “I don’t want to hurt their self-esteem.”
I could have screamed, but my wife was right . . . he’d probably single out my daughter (who, by the way was a straight A student). So I remained mute. To this day, I wish I’d have gone after this high-paid ba$tard who showed up looking like he’d just changed a tire.
And we wonder what’s going wrong with our screw-el systems.
I can identify with your post!....I served on a local small town school board for many years...(Still hold the record for being out voted, but that’s another story) it used to infuriate me when we would receive the reams of paper hand-outs filled with spelling and grammatical errors.......I was lucky enough to attend a 4 room grammar school with 4 older and dedicated teachers serving 8 grades (that was before multi-classrooms had been invented)...our town would send 10-15 kids a year to a regional HS of 200-300 and invariably produce the valedictorian each year...(it eventually became an embarrassment to the larger town where the HS was located)