Depresing Newz: Spelcheking During Exams Now OoKay Wit Oragan Schols [Wtf]

Hey, here’s a specific thing that’s suddenly not cheating anymore: using a computer spell checker on school writing exams . This week’s top head-shaking sign of the times is courtesy of Oregon, now condoning the practice for middle and high schoolers.

If this sounds utterly asinine to you-well, you’re right! Everyone uses spellcheck. It’s wonderful. It’s convenient. But, at a definite age, it’s not an instructive tool, but how to keep yourself from inadvertently looking like an idiot. It corrects mistakes. But a fifth grader? He probably isn’t sure tips on how to spell numerous words to start with. At this point, being given a magic word wand while seeking to prove his aptitude with the English language isn’t a fallback-it’s a crutch. And it’s going to hurt that kid’s ability to jot down.

But! The state of Oregon seems to disagree: ” We aren’t letting a student’s keyboarding skills get inside the way of with the ability to judge their writing ability,” explains state Superintendent Susan Castillo. Now pardon me while I load my spellchecker, but I’m not likely sure what here’s presupposed to mean. Aren’t ” keyboarding skills” the usage of a keyboard to correctly type a word? Isn’t that… spelling? Is the usage of a keyboard-which enables a individual to put in writing far faster than with any pen and paper-really what’s holding back a spelling-challenged kiddo? This defensive position also crumbles if you read that spellchecking can be available to those taking the paper version of the test too, as OregonLive reports.

The easiest method to be informed methods to spell a word right is to spell it wrong and be corrected. By giving kids a digital cheat sheet for every word in their written language, they won’t must learn anything. The faculty defends the system by pointing to the undeniable fact that misspelled words won’t be automatically corrected, but will rather prompt kids to pick out from a number of options, one of to be able to contain the properly spelled word. Which, again, teaches nothing-the prompt will ever be a freebie or a futile test-within-a-test. Quick tip, Oregon: if they knew the way to spell it right, they might have spelled it right first of all.

Technology is a good method to learn. I credit an inordinate volume of the things I know (some of them more valuable than others-whatup obscure Wikipedia pages on Star Wars characters!) to the usage of a computer. But the line between help and hindrance is additionally thin. And with American teens already sending and receiving a nauseating 3,339 texts a month (I am a hypocrite), spelling will count more now than ever-lest we wish the subsequent great American novel to be written like a sequence of 2 AM drunk tweets. [ OregonLive ]

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This post is tagged: defensive position, english language, keyboarding skills, misspelled words, state superintendent, undeniable fact, written language