My daughter, who is in the second grade, has been doing her homework. Tonight's homework is to practice this week's spelling and dictation sentences. When I read the last of the three sentences, I nearly gouged out my eyes. It read (and I assure you, I'm not making this up), "Which show is Mother and Father going to watch together?"
Augh, the pain! And I hasten to add that my children attend one of the very best public schools in the county. Ay yi yi!
I wrote a note to the teacher explaining that the sentence is grammatically incorrect and why. And apologized for being a frustrated English teacher.
But really, if anyone wants to know why today's children and young adults don't have a proper command of the English grammar and sentence structure, I suspect the fact that their teachers apparently haven't got one either goes a long way toward explaining it.
Oh, and a friendly reminder: tomorrow's election day. Go and boot the bastards out of office for me, will ya?
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7 comments:
Let's laugh at this together:
I suspect the fact that their teachers apparently have got one either goes a long way toward explaining it.
I reread this about five times trying to figure out what the heck you were saying. TELL ME it's part of the joke?! LOL
PS feel free to delete this after you correct they's post...
Tee hee. This is what happens when you're frothing at the mouth!
I'm cracking up.
Off topic: just spent a frantic second trying to figure out why my icon wasn't displaying. Turns out I selected the Don't show questionable material option. Darn it. IE wins again.
Whee tyops!
That's just sad, Jacqueline. Not the typo, the homework sentence.
This is something that we've avoided through 8 years of schooling until this year. This year, older son has his first certifiably bad teacher (worse, it's social studies and current events, we're Jewish, and she's teaching the middle east with all kinds of wrong facts and interpretations). But it's the younger one, 3rd grade, where I'm already nearly snatching myself bald and in danger of getting hauled off to jail for assault. His teacher is a sweet woman who has NO idea she's almost as dumb as a box of rocks. We have struggled over incorrect math, bad grammar, poor spelling, and her telling my son he can't read that book (Harry Potter) because "it's too hard and it will hurt your comprehension" (she gave him a Captain Underpants book instead...sigh.)
I used to teach. My children are in public schools because the only way they will get better is if those of us who *care* about kids education are invested in the system. But it's enough to make me cry.
I hate to admit it, but it took me several minutes to figure out why the teacher was wrong.
Alice
Alice, if it's any consolation to you, when I first read it, my ear said it was wrong but it took me a few seconds to see WHY it was wrong. (And I'm not sure this particular error came from this teacher. The spelling/dictation lists for the week are used by ALL the second grade classes, so it could easily have been prepared by one of the other teachers.)
Chris, I'm sorry to hear that your kids' teachers haven't been up to snuff this year. I've been pretty happy with my kids' teachers over the years (crazy amounts of homework starting in kindergarten aside) and have warm, fuzzy feelings about the school overall, but I totally agree with your assessment that the public schools NEED parents who care.
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