Oh dear, DD's KS1 teacher wrote "there" when meaning "they're"...

[JKB1]

...and this was on a class assembly slide in front of the whole school plus the parents of the class. Is there any hope? You've got to laugh, then get on with the job of picking up the slack at home.

Shattered,

In my experience:

The vast majority of teachers spell very well.

A small minority have a weakness in spelling and / or grammar, which will generally be picked up and addressed in school. The extent to which this makes a teacher unemployable will depend on the subject and on their other strengths and weaknesses.

No teachers are wholly immune to making very occasional mistakes.

On this basis, I would not claim that 'teachers can't spell anymore'. I am in my 40s, and I well remember that my spelling at age 11 was very much better than my final-year primary school teacher's.

Did she make the PowerPoint or did the kids do it??
I am a very good speller but still make mistakes at times. Yes, she should have checked it and she's probably really embarrassed but I don't think there is no hope.

'I of all people'

'CV's' ???

Glass houses there. Lots of 'em.

Just wondering,if it was a class assembly, was the powerpoint or whatever ACTUALLY done by her, or had the children had a hand in it? Sometimes the children do the powerpoint presentations at our class assemblies and the odd spelling mistake creeps in. And sometimes the teachers copy word for word exactly what the children have written without correcting it,so that to all intents and purposes, it remains their work even if it is up on a screen.

Other than that...teachers and TA's are only human and we occasionally make mistakes, usually when we are rushing to comlplete something. Sorry.

ooops...COMPLETE something. I rest my case.

Feenie,

Er, were you questioning the grammar or the punctuation?

Anybody...

When did 'any more' become one word? Was it at the same time as 'a lot'?

The grammar of the first phrase and the punctuation in the second part.

by Wednesday I just want to sleep Feenie

Can I whisper, very quietly Feenie dear, that the grammar of the first is correct but the punctuation isn't... (it should have commas round 'of all people')

And CV's is also correct, it can have either as it happens, I use CVs but apple think they know better.

But it's chicken and egg. Which came first? Teachers who couldn't spell or today's children whose spelling is dreadful.

Really, maizieD? Can we call it clumsy then, do you think? It sounds awful.

CV's is most certainly not correct, Shattereddreams - plurals do not need apostrophes.

Shattered,

Could you possibly point me to the (widely gathered, obviously) evidence that teachers' spelling is dreadful? I appreciate that you have evidence from CVs (plural, no apostrophe unless you are saying that something belongs to the CV, e.g. 'That CV's font is unreadable', though even that is a clumsy construction and 'The font in that CV is unreadable' would make your meaning clearer) that those young adults who apply to you either spell poorly or make frequent typing errors or use spellcheck indiscriminately.

As it happens, my teacher over 30 years ago couldn't spell - so by your logic, my spelling should be terrible ...

You're all so defensive.

I actually stated children's spelling was awful.
If you use the full Curriculum Vitaes then they can belong to someone. Hence the apostrophe.
As I already said, I have limited exposure to teachers. And then my exposure to MN where it seems lots of teachers struggle to spell SIMPLE words which is what I find hard to take.

My experience was Scrible? Really? Perhaps a long word, a difficult word or not follow the usual rule word. But a word my 5 year old can spell.

All of you teachers here, I bet you needed high A levels to study at Uni. I didn't get enough A level points to become a teacher 20 years ago.

It's the 'what changed' bit I don't understand.

That's a generalisation btw

If you use the full Curriculum Vitaes then they can belong to someone. Hence the apostrophe.

Wtf?

There is no 'hence', Shattereddreams - it doesn't need one. Ever.

'It's the 'what changed' bit I don't understand'

The demands of the curriculum changed. When I began, decades ago, the priorities were reading, writing and maths. How you taught it was entirely up to the teacher, there was no www or google, so the need was for a teacher with an excellent, established internalised understanding of what was being taught, and high level skills in those three areas.
We used to teach RWM in the mornings, and topic and PE in the afternoons.
The system had many faults, so they improved it. You are now living in the new, improved, upgraded version. As are your children.

You are, of course, correct Feenie.
But who cares?

The plural of curriculum vitae is curricula vitae (curriculum=course and curricula=courses; 'vitae' is genitive and means 'of life').

So really, shattered's sentence should have read 'I receive in excess of 3000 wannabe cv a year to read' if we want to get pedantic!

(....I assume? Any Latin scholars out there?!)

I stand corrected, someone does care!

Probably just me, TNBoojum

Good pedant work there, alcofrolic.

I once received a letter from DD's cardiologist. Before he retired, he was one of the most well-respected and well-loved paediatric cardiologists in the country. He has appeared on numerous episodes on the BBC following a well-known children's hospital in London.

One line of the letter read 'she is no medication'.

He probably trained as a doctor (and worked for much of his career) in a time when written communication was typed by secreataries. I used to spend my summer as a university student working as an office temp, and much of my time was spent typing relatively mundane communications but there would be only one PC per office.

Typos happen. They look really unprofessional, but most people accept that they happen from time to time.

If the teacher didn't understand the grammatical rules, then that's another matter entirely.

Incidentally, I was really pleased that the letter about my DD's heart surgery was actually written personally by her consultatnt and didn't come from a 'standard letter bank'. The typo proved that!

Yes, when I was a gel, A stream did Latin, C stream did typing.
I can't type without peering at the keyboard.

I was part of a small group at my girl's independent school who managed to convince the 'powers that be' that typing/word processing should be considered a 'DT' subject along with art/cookery/needlework/childcare.

It was very useful as a money-making skill for subsidising university.

Alas, I learned to 'word-process' on an Amstrad WPC. If Sugar thinks he's so damn clever, how does he explain that one?