Yes Ren, it was a compliment I gave you!
Luckily the lack of the certificates didn't stop me teaching. It just limited the employment available. Actually I ended up earning the same as qualified teachers with far less admin duties. All but one job didn't pay in the holidays, which was the biggest difference, but the one that did was populated by some very academic brains indeed with a variety of higher degrees but no maths o-level. A trainee teacher at my first place had a PhD but still failed maths half way through her course.
Even after I stopped schoolteaching I carried on private tuition, which I'd done as well throughout, and only stopped about 7 years after the teaching job as where I'd moved to didn't seem to have any demand for pupils. Maybe if I have a year with enough time and space I could have a go at the maths, but it may ruin so much time memorising formulas for areas and volumes of curved surfaces, quadratic equations and outflow of water over time I may not retain the sanity I have!

Unlike successive British governments, I'm disinclined to attach much importance to whether or not a teacher - at primary level school level, anyway, has a GCSE in maths or not.

This wasn't what I had in mind when I referred to recycling ignorance: rather, I was thinking of people with the ostensibly appropriate bits of paper, say a recent graduate with an upper second from one of the older, respected universities - in other words, someone with what looks like an official seal of approval from an oh-so-respectable institution but in fact is still very wobbly indeed on the basics of his or her subject. Alas, in many subjects, such graduates are the norm, not the exception. Standards have been falling since about 1990, and the lecturers and professors teaching them have kept their heads down and said nothing. (A few have even mouthed platitudes about 'rising standards'). After all, if you've worked hard to get a doctorate and to publish a couple of dozen articles in scholarly or scientific periodicals and a couple of books, it can be mortifying to admit that many of the people one's teaching would have had a real struggle passing 'O' level twenty years ago.

[Edited to correct a typo]

The sad thing is that the workplace rewards people with numbers skills, but tends to be dismissive of people who speak standard English.

I work at a the University of California, and find myself cringing at the constant misuse of language by those you would think would know better. These are academics and upper level administrators. They think nothing of writing papers for public consumption that would have gotten failing grades in high school. When I offer to proofread for them, I'm told that the computer spellcheck program is all they need.

I understand that English is a constantly evolving language and that today's grammatical error may be tomorrow's rule of usage, but it still hurts my ears.

This sounds grim. What sort of 'papers for public consumption' are written so badly? In my experience, university teachers write accurately when it matters. Obviously, the spoken language is a different matter.

I was dismayed a couple of years ago to receive a letter sent to all parents from my son's (primary) school which contained at least seven different errors. Infact, dismayed is not the right word - incensed would be more appropriate. I nearly sent it back covered in red ink but managed to restrain myself (just). My son's homework instructions quite regularly contained spelling and even grammatical errors. These I was not so gentle with and they were corrected immediately! I was just SO cross about it. Other mothers I've mentioned it to have had the same reaction. It sends out such a bad picture of the school.

As an aside, David, surely with today's rising GCSE results an A* at least should be within reach??

What you write, superdupersue, sounds like an excellent example of what I had in mind when I wrote about 'recycling ignorance'. As you observe:

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It sends out such a bad picture of the school

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It almost beggars belief, but once I received a letter from a university Language Centre - of all places - with spelling mistakes that even extended to the name of one of the languages it taught. I commented and was told, "Yes, it looks a bit bad". Ever since then I've regarded the place as a bit of a joke.

Throughout the entirety of my schooling, it amazed me that people could get to a certain age, and not know how to spell. At my school, there were a few people in my year with learning disabilities. Not only did they receive help with their condition, but they genuinely, and desperately, wanted to help themselves. They did this by throwing themselves into the work, and trying to master the excruciating grammatical experience that is the English language

Meanwhile, people without such conditions didn't bother, and couldn't spell to save their lives. This is a genuine conversation I had with a friend, who couldn't spell simple words like 'essay'.

Me: That could be a problem, you should probably work on your spelling.
Them: I don't see why I should. We have spellcheck for that.
Me: What about exams, you have do write those yourself. By hand.
Them: Oh.

Damn spellcheck. It's evil. It's not that it encourages laziness (which I suppose it does anyway), but that it lulls people into a false sense of security. Smart people in my year never learned spelling and grammar, did well in their coursework, and then wondered why they nearly flunked their exams. So let's kill spellcheck

My daughter, who is essentially an A student and has a wonderful command of grammar and syntax, cannot spell to save her life. And believe me, it has not been due to a lack of effort on either of our parts.
It's almost as if she has this tiny little learning disability that affects that and that alone...okay, so maybe it extends a little into Maths .

I'm sorry to hear about your daughter's problem. I know a few people who are competent at most things at school but have a problem with spelling, and I even know a headmaster (principal) with a Ph.D. who has problems with spelling. Perhaps this is of some consolation.

As for documents sent out by schools and colleges, I really do think they need to check them carefully. After all, it affects the image of any educational establishment.

Perhaps there is too much of a tendency to judge people by their spelling. Anyone who feels this is very unfair should note the situation in countries with languages that have reasonably consistent spelling systems. There even one minor spelling mistake in a rarely used word can lead people to regard one as hopelessly uneducated and a complete ignoramus.

My daughter also has trouble with spelling - I put it down to the way she learned to read. She was a very quick and almost intuitive reader - she would look at the first letter of a word, and at the picture, and guess, usually correctly. This works very well in the primary grades, not so well later on.
My son, on the other hand, made heavy work of learning to read, you could see him sweating as he sounded out those words! He has ended up a very careful reader, and a good speller - it's as if the hard work he put in in those early days impressed on him the importance of getting just the right word, and spelling it right.

I work in a business where we don't often have a chance to see the written work of our co workers. I remember how surprised I was, when two of us were doing inventory. I was calling out names of items, and numbers, and she was writing them down. When I looked at the lists later, almost every word was spelled wrong. This was not difficult stuff, but the contents of an ordinary kitchen - steamer, frying pan, slotted spoon.... I admit, my opinion of her changed, from that time on.

What Agony wrote above about the differences in how her kids learned to read having an impact on their spelling is really interesting. I am mildly dyslexic, which goes with having AD/HD, but is usually only a problem when I am very tired. I would say I was much more of the "see the beginning of the word, guess the rest school" than of the careful sounding out side of things. And I am and have always been a terrible speller, which is partly why I always read everything several times before I let it out into the world (even just a simple post like this!)

I found out something very intriguing recently (actually when researching a quiz!) which might impact on (my) spelling. It involves the auditory processing of language and how in some oddly wired brains the message gets mixed up somewhere between thinking the word you want to say and actually saying it. Of course the wrong words slip out of everyone's mouth every now and then (when you mean one thing and say your mother...) but this is on a more subtle level of the actual structure of the words. For example, I might mean to say (and indeed hear clearly in my head) the word 'pronounce', but it will come out as 'pronunce' or 'prononce'. It's no wonder I can't spell! The thing is, I know I can't spell, and so I take pains to work out ways to get around it. The only way to do this is not - contrary to what several of my teachers thought when I was at school - to just sit down and (try to) memorise great lists of words. I have always been a big reader, lack of exposure is not my problem. I actually had one primary school teacher - of my accelerated learning class mind you - who made my mother come in so she could lecture both of us about how stupid I was because I couldn't spell!

Not having kids of my own I'm not really across how things stand in schools these days. I do have a cousin who is a teacher and has been sent to endless seminars over recent holiday breaks as they are 'going back to phonetics', at least in NSW. I remember this was one of our esteemed Federal Education Minister's favourite hobby-horses not so long ago. I don't know exactly what this means, but it sounds like the way it was for me 30 years ago, when we had bags hung on the back of our chairs with kits of little pieces of cardboard with words and letters on them that we would slot into the accompanying book once we'd learned them, a few each week. I can't comment on whether or not this is a good way to learn to read, as I knew how before I even got to school (something for which I am eternally greatful to my parents; I could read music too. Ooh, I used a semi-colon!) This was something which threw my teacher completely. I think she was a fairly new graduate and wasn't quite sure what to do with someone who didn't fit the way she'd been told to do things. Looking back I'm horrified to realise that I was the only one of a class of some 25 who could already read when they got to school. Teachers and parents, was I really a freak, or do I have grounds for my incredulity?

Not many kindergarten kids can read before they hit school, but I wouldn't go so far as to say freak. In my experience, Gr 1 (age 6) is when most kids learn to read.

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I actually had one primary school teacher - of my accelerated learning class mind you - who made my mother come in so she could lecture both of us about how stupid I was because I couldn't spell!

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Some teachers just plain deserve to be shot. My husband's kindergarten teacher told his mother that he would never amount to anything because he couldn't colour between the lines. He has his Phd now.

Thanks skunkee. I must say I am a bit surprised that more kids can't read when they get to kindie, but then I was 6 when I started school (a cruel twist of bureaucracy meant that, had I been born I think about a week earlier, I would have been allowed to start when I was 5).

Also, I got so carried away with the contents of my own head that I forgot to mention I've had some great teachers too. And, of course, I was not always a model student...

Unfortunately there are all too many parents who don't bother trying to teach their kids to read and rely on Sesame Street and Dora the Explorre to do any pre-school instruction.
I think I mentioned earlier in this thread that we once had a kindergarten class where over 40% of the kids had never been read to and had no idea what to do with a pencil or crayon. They had been sat in front of a television most of their lives. It was pretty darn scary!
I remember one gr 2 student coming in the first day of school and complaining that he'd rather be home watching Jerry Springer!

That's one thing to be said for daycare. My personal feeling is that staying at home with an involved, hands on parent (or grandparent, or other loving, stable caregiver) with a real interest in child development is the best bet for the preschool years. (Of course, this is not always possible and desirable for every family, for a variety of reasons.)
However, staying at home with a parent who is not really interested in parenting is, in my opinion, actually detrimental to the child. Daycare workers may not love your child with the kind of unconditional love that you do, but they can be counted on to do other important things with your child. Reading, going for walks, learning social skills and basic manners, learning self care skills (putting on coats, washing hands, picking up after themselves......), both free and structured play, GOING OUTSIDE (this is a big one - do you know how common it is for a two year old to start daycare without owning a pair of winter boots? They are driven and carried everywhere they go - many of our kids cannot walk a block when they start daycare, they have either been driven or pushed in a stroller their whole lives) all of this is daily activity in a daycare. Our kids start kindergarten with a solid grounding in the skills they will need, including such nasty but necessary skills as lining up, sitting still and listening, and waiting their turns.

There was a thread on another site in which someone (I'm assuming a fairly young, somewhat disillusioned someone) had asked "What's the point of school?" There were the expected 'silly' answers like "to keep children off the streets", "so parents can go to work and earn money to send you to school", "to torture children"; also a few serious, 'helpful' ones like "so you can grow up to get a good job and make money". My contribution, which I admit was slightly (but only slightly) tongue-in-cheek, was "To learn to work and play well with others, and to learn to learn."

It sounds obvious, but it's actually a really good question, and I think harks back to the original concept of this thread. If we all - governments, school administrators, teachers, parents, students, 'society' in general - don't even have a unified idea of what schools are, how can we possibly expect them to be effective?

Interesting. I wonder if "we all" have a "unified idea" of the purpose of schooling? In fact, I remember some of the frivolous answers you've found being mentioned for a very long time - in particular, keeping kids off the streets and giving the mothers the chance to work.

I think schooling serves, or rather should serve, at least three functions:

1. It should provide children with the skills to learn. Obviously, this includes not only the "basics" but also enough general knowledge to provide a framework for further learning. One can put it simply as giving children the tools for the tasks of learning.

(From this it follows that I don't think it's the function of ordinary, mainstream schools to provide vocational training).

2. Schools, together with parents, ought to pass on acceptable norms of behaviour and core moral values. (I know this sounds old-fashioned and I hope it doesn't sound pompous).

3. Schools provide children with the opportunity to mix with and get to know children from a range of backgrounds. Together with parents, schools play or ought to play a key role in helping children to grow up, to become active, good citizens, able to stand on their own two feet.

Is this really asking too much? I imagine that there's probably no that much disagreement about this.

Obviously, if schools fail in the very first task - that of teaching kids to read - then their chances of success with the rest of the agenda are nil.

[Edited to insert two missing words. ]

Bloomsby am I to take the above "we all" as signifying us lot here at FT? If so (or even if not!), I broadly agree with your definitions (I agree with your broad definitions?) Uh-oh, I can see I'm heading for a silly language day. But obviously, had my basic formal education been sub-par, I wouldn't have the option to be silly with language deliberately, or recognise when I was doing so inadvertently.

Of course none of this adds anything to the discussion at hand, but really the last post (must resist temptation to make comment about buglers) sums up and rounds out the thread nicely. I just thought that, having brought up the point which Bloomsby so eloquently addressed, it would be rude not to reply in some way!

But seriously, no, I don't think it's too much to ask and I don't think there's much disagreement, certainly amongst FTers. The problem is, what do we do about it making sure it happens?

Many thanks for you comments, ing. As for "we all", I doubt if those members of FT who post regularly in the Forums are typical of those active on the site as a whole.

As for how "we" make "sure it happens", my own observations and common sense point to getting rid of quackery in teacher training as a matter of urgency. I hope I'm generally tolerant, but with education there's a lot at stake.

Above all, I'd like the school system to get away from the notion of children as budding artists and researchers, and treat them in the first instance as learners who need to be instructed instead of being left to discover things for themselves: some manage it, some don't and some get there far too late. What is most devastating of all is that about 20% of 16-year-olds in most of the English-speaking countries have very poor levels of literacy and numeracy indeed.

[To be continued]

PS. It's intriguing to see that this thread, started about two months ago, on 27 August 2005, has been viewed over 1,260 times and has close on 70 posts.

(Continued) I promised to add to my last post. I'll just mention a couple of further points. Schools simply must teach kids to use the basic tools used in learning, but many don't.

1. A former pupil of mine told me the following story from his teaching practice in French just over ten years ago. The pupils were trying to write in French. Someone in the class asked what the French for 'to' is (after having been officially learning French for about four years!). The boy was told to look it up in the English-French dictionary on his desk. When my ex-pupil collected the work in he was thunderstruck to find that this particular boy had put prep. for to and asked him why. The boy replied that it was the first word given in the dictionary for to. This wasn't what is often called a bog-standard comprehensive, but a school widely regarded in the area as only a little below average.

Not suprisingly, my former pupil wondered if he'd been unlucky. Imagine his horror on discovering that such experiences were quite commonplace. About a week later he and some others training to teach modern languages mentioned this woeful ignorance at the university that was supposed to be training them. The lecturer just didn't want to know about it ...

Seriously, what is one to make of a school that doesn't even provide its pupils with the knowledge needed to use a dictionary half way sensibly? Does it even deserve to be called a skool - never mind a school?

2. Very often pupils arrive at university without any kind of basic outline knowledge of subjects that they have nominally been learning for several years. The trouble may be the view that getting kids to learn anything by heart will traumatize them for life or whatever, so they arrive without any framework. The result is that when they acquire new knowledge it simply shunts around or displaces existing knowledge. I'll return for a moment to lingos. If you try to teach the average undergraduate the passive in German it just messes up their knowledge of - their ability to use - the active!

The education system is some countries is little more than one vast disgrace!

UP!

This topic has come up on the History chatboard, so I've moved this thread 'up', especially as one poster there said she'd not been able to find this thread.

Thanks Bloomsby - had'nt realised you were a fellow East Anglian!

I knew I had read a thread on this subject when I first started reading the forum, but had a senior moment.

I believe that some of the younger teacher's excuses for not correcting spelling (apart from halting creative flow, whatever that means) is because they are unable to spell correctly either. My children did thankfully go through the education system with teachers who thought that sentence construction, punctuation and spelling were important tools for their future careers and it certainly seemed to work in their cases.

I left school at sixteen and worked and learned as I went - no luxury of an easy degree course in outer Mongolian yak farming or something equally useless.

What surprises me most, is that this seems to be worldwide problem - well at least, sadly, in the rich west. Is this a conspiracy? Where did the rot set in?

I communicate daily with young people in Eastern Europe, Africa and the Far East, and their English is amazing: they can hold a good conversation, and they are frighteningly knowledgeable. I think we are just lazy - far easier to find out what you want on the internet and profess to know all there is to know, than to actually READ a book and do some research yourself.

I was never a great academic, but I did read avidly and learned (hopefully) a passable standard of English grammar. To say that correcting bad work in the classroom discourages creative thought is, in my opinion, just an excuse. Am sure Dickens and some of the other great writers in history were not so indulged.

As Bloomsby said, it is not primarily the spelling which is at fault, it is the lack of knowledge in communicating, in words of more than one syllable, in the language of your country.

On an eBay forum board I check out there is someone called "spelling_cop" who corrects all the spelling mistakes and everyone else is trying desperatly to catch him out. He made a correction not that long ago:

"thier:their"

and no word of a lie someone comes on and says

"gotcha spelling_cop, it is THIER, i before e and all that. I'm a teacher and I should know"

Firstly: yes, you should know

and secondly: Ohhhh man. And THAT is what is wrong with the teachers of today.

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What surprises me most, is that this seems to be worldwide problem - well at least, sadly, in the rich west. Is this a conspiracy? Where did the rot set in?

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As far as I'm aware, the problem is particularly bad in the English-speaking lands. In those countries where the main or national language(s) have consistent spelling systems the problem is less marked. It would be particularly interesting to have detailed information on the situation in Italy and Spain, for example, as Italian and Spanish have very consistent spelling systems. The same is true of the Scandinavian languages and Dutch. German, too, has a fairly consistent system too, though it's a shade cimbersome by comparison by Spanish or Russian, for example. It would be interesting to know what the position is in France ...

It is surely significant that in most of those countries spelling bees and so on are practically unknown.

As for the view that every child is a budding artist, creative writer (of merit), scholar, scientist or whatever and should simply be allowed to develop unimpeded, to grow like a plant, it overlooks the fact that one must first provide the child with the tools to do the job! To me anyway, it's so obvious that it should not even be necessary to state it. Essentially, I'm saying that the earlier stages of schooling (say, between about ages 5-16) must be primarily didactic or, to coin a term, instructional but becoming less so as the child matures.

Those with fanciful 'biologistic' views of children as creatures that simply learn the essentials willy-nilly, forget that many plants wither and perish. As far as I know, the origins of these astonishing ideas can be found in the period c. 1900-20, when there was a revolt against the formality of conventional schooling. It was at this time, too, that various youth organizations were founded, the best known in Britain being the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides (and their junior branches). At a more fundamental level, I see the movement as anti-academic. Academic is often a derogatory word in English. I don't know of any country outside the English-speaking lands where this is the case.

I said in an earlier post that if I had to choose between the maxims Every child a potential scholar or scientist on the one hand, and Every child a potential artist on the other, I would without a moment's hesitation opt for the former. After all, producing good creative writing and usually worthwhile art too, involves research; and for research in any serious sense one needs the tools for the job.

Whether a scientist, scholar or creative writer, one also needs enough general knowledge to furnish a framework for understanding newly acquired knowledge. For example, if undergraduates studying political science are hazy about the dates and general course of WWII (and for that matter, also WWI) how on earth are they to make sense of the Cold War, the rise of Fascism and expressions like the 'inter-war period'?

(Note. I have ignored Rousseau and some early advocates of comparable views of education as I want to focus on the continuous development of such ideas in Britain).

On the chatboard the point was made that the content of a message is more important than its form, which is true, especially in emergencies. However, if one wants one's views to be taken seriously and to influence people, one uses the accepted norms of spelling and grammar (or something pretty close to them). The authors of books advocating the importance of simply getting children to express themselves don't, after all, use bizarre grammar or spell poorly. They are very well aware that to do so is a patent recipe for not being taken seriously.

Well, I'd better stop here for the time being.