Kevin Donnelly
The Australian
Australia’s children are being taught by illiterate teachers, said Kevin Donnelly. In a recent survey, more than 40 percent of parents said their kids’ teachers had sent home comments or assignments that were misspelled or ungrammatical or, worst of all, written in text-message style, using “l8r” for “later” and “U” for “you.” Some parents even reported that their children had been given lists of spelling words that were misspelled. But this appalling state of affairs is not the teachers’ fault—nobody ever required them to learn how to spell. They came of age in the 1970s and ’80s, when progressive theorists were “more concerned with imposing politically correct, cultural-left approaches to literacy and learning” than teaching proper English. The only time they studied the mechanics of language was when they learned a foreign language. Now we are all paying the price. College students have to take remedial courses in basic essay writing, and schools have to “pay outside consultants to proofread student report cards for mistakes” made by the teachers who issue them. The teaching of English has been “dumbed down,” and it’s making Australia look dumb.
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