I'm reading the paper this morning, and a help-wanted ad catches my eye. It seems that we have a new charter school in town, and they need teachers. It might be nice to have a real, steady income, instead of the catch-as-catch-can I make as a freelancer and part-time teacher. The want ad directs me to the school's web site.
Time for a confession: I have spent many years of my life fixing other people's writing. It's one of those jobs that you can only do for money, because it is pretty much thankless. As a result, things like misspelled words and grammatical errors tend to POP out at me. If there are enough, I stop reading, unless I'm being paid.
I also subscribe to the notion that what a company publishes reflects the kind of place it is. I admit it. I'm a snob; and an educated one at that.
I go to the web page, where I am confronted with writing that is not only bad (which is forgivable) but almost criminally ungrammatical. I am absolutely adamnant that sentences must contain verbs. The period, in my not-humble opinion, is the prize given for constructing a real sentence. No verb equals no prize. I'm also a little persnickety about using the correct verb form, singular or plural, much more persnickety, it turns out, than the writer of the school web site. This company is not only a potential employer, but, more importantly, purports to be capable of educating children.
The No Child Left Behind Law helped create a market for such schools. This one claimed to be rated exemplary by the Texas Education Agency, which indicates that its students achieved above-just-passing scores on our state standardized tests. I find it interesting and alarming that the school is actively recruiting both teachers and students while failing to use standard written English.
Steady paycheck or not, I'm not filling in an application. Educating children is much too important to leave to such an unprofessional outfit, even if they are, as they claim, "a great place to work at."
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Comments: 19
I'm sorry to hear you won't be applying - it sounds like those poor kids NEED you!
Charter schools here are not held to that same standard for teacher qualifications. Our charter school either do very well at educating children or are so bad at it that they either go out of business or are taken over by the state system.
Some of the written communications that have come home from the schools are simply appalling and I recall that the grammer schools were the worst.
I am also disturbed by some of the tests that I have reviewed. Multiple choice questions where either the question or the answer choices are so poorly worded that I am unabe to determine the correct answer. I am left to interpret the teacher's intent and choose the best answer while pointing out the factual deficiencies.
Try being a Uni lecturer - the students come in with a minimal understanding of written English... and, as for their spoken English....?!
I'm fairly educated. I often get a bit carried away or excited when I type so you'll have to forgive my typos and grammar problems. I am an educator. I teach at a small university.
I'm not really sure what to say about this particular article. I love teaching. I love computers. Schools need educated and dedicated teachers. Eliminate either of those variables from the equation, and you end up with a person that shouldn't be teaching.
Our educational system is being starved. We discuss schools and teaching as if our country isn't seriously suffering. Illiterate teachers should not be allowed to teach. Truly intelligent individuals who lack the heart and dedication for the career, also should not teach.
There are still good teachers. There are also poorly trained accountants, writers, doctors, and lawyers. I hope the future will be brighter. One day, we'll value good teachers. I sure do appreciate mine.
Please forgive the errors.
Shelley, I think what people complain about is not the one or two silly mistakes that teachers make when they have to get a note out quickly to the parents. I usually just laugh at those, as I know how utterly exhausted teachers can be at the end of the day (I was a teacher in a previous life). It's consistently poor quality writing that can be a bit depressing--poorly worded, badly punctuated, full of agreement issues and general non-sequiturs.