Is It The Texting That's The Problem?

In this day and age of texting and instant messages, it is becoming apparent that people do not know how to spell when they need to be professional.

A teacher at Odom today read us a letter that was written by a college junior who is studying to be a teacher. The letter was laden with so many misspelled words and grammatical errors...and this person wants to be a teacher.

He or she said that "when I was in the eight grade"...yes eight, not eighth. And said "every since" not "ever since". But is this really texts and IM's? Or is it just that people don't care anymore if they understand the English language? And, why do teachers let it slide? Why don't they, even if they are Math teachers, tell students that the grammar they are using is incorrect? Why do they let them continue to speak incorrectly?

I think that all teachers ~ Math, Science, History, English, Music, you name it ~ needs to be responsible for correcting inproper use of words and when students turn in papers, grammar needs to be checked. It is so bad that it happens in our local newspaper on a daily basis. Where's the editor? Maybe the editor doesn't know the difference, either.

If we continue to allow young people to speak improperly and do not show them what is correct, we are all going to be to blame. I know that I correct students when I am talking to them at the school, and I am not a teacher. I wish that all the teachers would do the same...and I also wish they wouldn't engage in the same kind of language when talking to the students.