Oshwal

Education these days seems to be lacking. What am I saying? Seems? No, it IS lacking. Kids today can’t seem to count without fingers or do math without calculators.
For those of us over the age of 35, you remember when the teacher would berate us for using our fingers to count? And forget using a mechanical calculator. He used to tell me the only calculator we’d ever be allowed to use in his class was our brains. This was the 5th grade. I’ll never forget that teacher, his name was Mr. Macarri, I hope I got the spelling right.

And spelling is another matter. With how many people see what you’ve written or rather typed these days you’d think people would pay more attention to what your spelling looks like. But, no, sadly they do not. I understand that this is that era of texting and that you need to abbreviate things so that you don’t run out of characters in your message but when you’re posting messages on a social site you usually don’t have a character limit for those messages so use real words, please! And yes, I am one of those snarky people who will correct your spelling and grammar.

Grammar. No kids, it isn’t a cutsie new name for your grandparents. If you want to know the exact definition look it up. There are dictionaries online, USE THEM! Most computers have spell and grammar checks, please use them. I get so tired of seeing people using their instead of they’re. Is it just laziness or are they generally ignorant of the difference? Using then instead of than. I could go on forever about those lacks of correctness but I won’t.

The biggest problem with the education today is, I believe, budget cuts, frustration and futility. Not only on the part of the students but also on the part of the teachers. Teachers today are expected to not only teach but to be counselors and disciplinarians. If a teacher has 40-45 students in his or her class not only do they have deal with at least a third of their class misbehaving on a regular basis but because the teacher has to discipline these students on a pretty consistent basis they do not have to time to teach the rest of their students, much less designate one on one time for any student. Sure they can send the child to the office but the office doesn’t want to deal with them any more than the teacher does.

Now, let’s deal with another problem with education today. Political correctness. There is way too much of this going on in schools today. If the child doesn’t pass the test, fail him or her. And let me tell you I’ve heard parents complain that their child was given a failing grade and was upset and “We don’t want his/her feelings hurt.” Too bad, maybe then they’d get better grades.