Professor says kids no longer need to learn spelling and grammar because of smartphones

Several skills that every kid once learned in school are going the way of the dodo in a hurry. Diagramming sentences is practically an extinct art, for example. Cursive handwriting and memorized multiplication tables look to be swiftly headed that way.

Apparently, the next thing that kids will no longer need to learn is spelling and grammar.

Sugata Mitra, a professor of educational technology at Newcastle University in northeast England, announced that traditional language rules are out of fashion, reports the Daily Mail. Kids don’t need to waste time on those things, see. State-of-the-art computers and mobile phones can make the necessary corrections.

Spelling and grammar are “a bit unnecessary because they are skills that were very essential maybe 100 years ago but they are not right now,” Mitra said. “Firstly, my phone corrects my spelling so I don’t really need to think about it and, secondly, because I often skip grammar and write in a cryptic way.”

The professor made the anti-spelling proclamation at a time when the British government is rolling out a host of educational standards including one that will require students to take a spelling test involving 200 complex words near the end of grade school.

Another exam for 11-year-olds that tests spelling, grammar and punctuation was launched this year.

There was a neat Sci_fi story titled "The Little Black Bag" wherein people in the future were so stupid, the intelligence had to be built into the equipment they used.

I thought it was just another futuristic story until I went to McDonalds (this was in the '70s) and saw that the cash registers didn't have numerals, just pictures of what was for sale. I quit reading Sci-Fi after that as too much of the off-the-wall scenarios were coming true.

This aricle just reinforces the future. Kornbluth wrote about that also in The Marching Morons".

Yes, I’ve seen not-that-great teachers get a pass as well. Most of them were little cutie pies right out of school who had the chairman wrapped around their finger. Others were veteran lickspittles for whom we offered to buy some brown lipstick. Since everyone is paying equal union dues, everyone gets equal protection—not-that-great teachers and really great ones. Otherwise, you would have a legitimate complaint that not-that-great teachers and great teachers should pay different amounts of dues, right? It is the job of unions to protect their dues-paying members, not to judge them. There are far too many vindictive and outright dishonest administrators to do that.

There is just no way to make the seventies not look stupid is there?

It's funny...I can watch vintage science fiction from the '50s where the future looks like this:

and '60s where it looks like this:

but then along comes the '70s...and this is our future:

(shudder)

I’d like to see a system that allows for good teachers to stay in the classroom and poor ones to be fired. I have a problem with ANY organization which promotes the same type of “shuffle them around if they aren’t good but don’t fire them no matter what” MO that we see on the federal employee levels everywhere. I hate that poor teachers often get moved into administration rather than “let go”. If they cannot teach they have no business making decisions which affect what happens in a classroom because academics is clearly not their forte. Private school teachers do not pay union dues, do not get that level of protection and are dismissed if they are not qualified. It’s one of the reasons that private schools succeed where public ones cannot. Not the only reason, mind you — but yes, it’s part of the equation.

Every now and then, I get out the old bamboo slide rule and give it a spin just to see if I still remember how it works.

I missed out on slide rules by a couple of years... I hit high school about the time that electronic calculators were coming down in price, even the full featured scientific calcs - like the Texas Instruments SR-50.

So while I did get a gift of a slide rule from an uncle who was an engineer with McDonell Douglass, I never did learn to use it.

Mark

I must disagree. I know many private school teachers who are utterly unqualified to teach. They don't even have college degrees, let alone teaching credentials. They ape professionally-trained teachers to enable the students to pass the state Regents exams. If you would ask them a question to explain something they taught, I guarantee you they would look at you like a deer in the headlights.

One of the reasons that private schools succeed where public ones cannot is the POPULATION of the school. Private schools have a select group of students whose parents can pay the tuition and whose parents care about their schooling. If the students misbehave, there is definitely a responsible parent at the end of that telephone number.

If you try to call a public school student's parent, I can tell you with certainty you have about a 25% chance of actually getting hold of that parent. Plenty of times you hear "Doo ooo ooo; this number is no longer in service." Also, if a student chronically misbehaves and disrupts a private school class, they will be tossed out the back door to public school. Can't do that with a public school student. If a private school student is having academic problems, in addition to the student's willingness to spend extra time with the teacher for extra help, the parents are right there ready to help them with their studies or hire a tutor. Many of the public school parents don't even speak English or have any education, let alone money to hire a tutor. If you schedule a help session for students, guess what? Nobody shows up. And they grin at you the next day, because you HAVE to pass them anyway or be harassed about "poor passing statistics".

Here is the thing public school needs. Not "Core Curriculum" socialist indoctrination, not all these fancy BS ivory tower methodologies, but DISCIPLINE. The ability to discipline the students without having charges brought up against you. That doesn't mean beating over the head with a birch rod, but it does mean that there are real consequences for bad behaviors. That you can tell them to be quiet, that your referrals for detentions and suspensions are actually followed up on.

The way it is now, if you so much as "make the student feel NER-VOUS", whatever that means, you can, in NYC, be brought up on CHARGES. That a bunch of the student's cronies will absolutely fabricate stories about what you actually said or did, and they will have been COACHED by the administration to include all the right buzz words.

So, it doesn't matter what you know or how well you can put it across. If you don't have the ability to have authority in your classroom, because you have been cut down at the knees by your administration, which in turn is told to do this by demagogue liberal non-educator politicians, you might as well not even get out of bed.

...people look illiterate when a word is not used or spelled properly. This is ignorance personified. More “dumbing down” of the educational system...

I agree, however I realize that "texting" is faster and more convenient when done in a short sentences and words. I've learned a lot of that from my kids. There's a time and place for it and messaging on your phone seems to be the time and place...not when you are writing an essay or answering test questions or filling out a job application.
It isn't or shouldn't be used as a general manner of writing. If this "professor" believes that, he shouldn't be teaching. The world is not your smartphone.

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