bad writting (sic)

I think a lot of it is the price of computers that correct spelling. Missing capitalisation and punctuation, and "textisms" annoy me too.

I once saw a mother ask: "Is it ok that my nine year old son can't write, he does all his homework on the computer anyway?"

Another post on a forum that astonished me was from a teacher who had failed an online arithmetic test which was aimed at primary school children. Apparently that was ok because she didn't teach maths.

I recently saw a post from an American gentleman, saying that his son, having graduated from High School, wants to travel - but can't get a passport because he has never learned cursive writing and therefore can't write a signature! Seems printing the name won't do...

I would point out the spelling mistake. Other parents and grandparents will also read the notices. I annoy my DH by reading everything, everywhere we go, and pointing out all the mistakes.
BTW I learned to read at home with my mother aged four, the same age as some of those children at Nursery School.

Lots of misinformation on here soontobe. My DD is just in the process of starting training to be a Primary School Teacher and it certainly isnt as easy or open to just anyone as you are inferring. Firstly, DD will have to apply, like any other undergraduate, for a place on a degree course (Primary Education with QTS status). Some of the courses have a specialism such as English, Maths, Music or Artwhic is also studied to degree standard. Apart from the academic requirements ( generally AAB at least at A level, she has to have done at least two weeks assisting in a primary school and will also have to pass a literacy and a numeracy test before she even gets an interview. During the degree course, she will not only be studying to a high level, she will also be working in a school for anything from 2 days per week to a full term, all while submitting essays, attending lectures etc. So, I for one resent the ignorant comments made about teacher training when you dont know what is involved.

MiceElf was kind enough to show me that there are ways round things. And that seems to be the route that someone I know has maybe taken. So I presume that some others choose to take that route as well.
Obviously, thankfully, others dont.
That does not mean that I am wrong any more than you are.

That is true, you need a degree to teach these days. Unless, of course, you are a teaching assistant, in which case you can be left in charge of a class and paid in peanuts. Why don't proper teachers complain about this? After all, it reduces the number of qualified teaching posts available and does the children no favours at all.

soontobe If the person you are speaking about is a teacher in a primary school (as a teacher, not a teaching assistant) she will be teaching ALL subjects. She will be laying the basis for them being taught each of these subjects by a different teacher in secondary school.
she not only has to know all the subject matter of the different departments, she has to know how to put it across so that it engages their attention and stays in their memory.

A teaching assistant is there to assist the teacher in the many tasks that have to be done to help the children, so if she is there in that capacity perhaps she has not had as much training as a qualified teacher has.

Acquiring the skills to do all that (and more) takes at least as long, and at least as much ability, as getting a degree in one subject and learning how to put that one subject over in secondary school.

If "she is fully aware that she is not all that bright. She teaches primary because she knows she is not up to teaching secondary." then she is putting herself down. Without good primary education, secondary schools cannot teach their pupils anything. You can't move on if the basic work has not been properly done.

feetle, I'd always understood that a signature doesn't have to be a word or words even though people usually use some or all of their name. Any kid who has graduated from high school ought to be able to invent a signature for himself which is unique to him and which joins up a few letters if that really is a requirement. I suppose if his printing is really basic, he mightn't be able to reproduce the same signature ad nauseam. Why would his printing be really basic unless he suffers from some disability? If he does, there surely should be a way round the problem. If, on the other hand, he is not disabled but he just can't be bothered to teach himself to write a signature.....

GillT57 Presumably your DD also had to have English, Maths and Science at 'O' level as well as the required 'A' levels which will the subjects of the student's choice.
The same goes for the PGCE course.

I'm the one member of my family with a legible signature. My sons' signatures are just scrawls, but consistent scrawls. As long as they correspond to signatures on passports and credit cards, scrawls appear to be permissible.

I think the American gentleman's post was either not genuine, or it was a hearsay urban myth.

It doesn't seem likely that the son went through high school without having to write a single word in ordinary, joined-up handwriting.

Yes Rosequartz applicants have to also have a minimum of grade C in Maths, English and Science at GCSE level. I am sorry if I got a bit cross yesterday, but being in amongst the teenage angst of UCAS applications, sitting exams, sitting literacy and numeracy tests gets stressful and to read someone dismissing primary teachers as doing the job because they are not clever enough to teach secondary level made me angry. Then you hear from current teachers who tell you that their working week is in excess of 60 hours and one wonders what it is all about.

GillT57 A stressful time.

Ana I think it must be an urban myth too.
Surely he learnt how to write at junior school?

I agree with NotTooOld regarding Teaching Assistants being left in charge of classes. As well as teachers having something to say about it I am sure that if parents knew how often it happens they would be horrified. There are some superb and talented (and some who are not) TAs but they are not trained to the same standard and are paid a pittance. Too often they are 'teachers' on the cheap and don't get me started on 'cover supervisors' in secondary schools.

Yes, what on earth are 'cover supervisors'? babysitters as far as I can see. I dont have a problem with teaching assistants and many of them are motivated and very helpful, but they should be working to the description of 'teaching assistant' and be assisting the class teacher, perhaps helping with target spelling/reading groups. But they are not qualified to plan lessons, or to give them and this does go on more than parents realise. We have lovely TAs at our local primary, but they are not qualified to A level standard, let alone degree, and as such they should not be taking a whole class, and I do know that this goes on.

Thank you for your apology.
But I do stand by what I have written. The particular primary school teacher does know[and I know too as does her relatives] that she would not touch being a secondary school teacher.
I am not meaning all secondary teachers.

I am not going to change facts.

I am aware that teachers work long hours, having been a school governor at a primary school [not the woman's I am talking about], for a number of years.

I appreciate that teaching at all levels is a stressful job too. Especially at certain times of year including now.

Teaching at primary and secondary levels are two different animals, so I am not surprised that your friend has no wish to change horses in midstream. It has nothing to do with not being bright enough, though, or of one job being more important or harder than the other.

Primary teachers teach all subjects to children between 5 and 12, and have spent 3 or four years buffing up not just their knowledge of the facts and processes of those subjects but also how to put them across to children of those ages - and what you do with a five-year-old is quite diufferent to what yu do with a twelve-year-old. Also a class of starters contains some who are still really babies and some who could run Microsfot, given the chance, so a primary teacher has to gear his/her approach on several levels simultaneously.

Secondary teachers teach their own chosen subjects - which they have spent 3 or 4 years studying in depth. Then they spend a year training to teach that subject. That does not necessarily make them any good at teaching a subject which is not their own.

No reasonable school would expect someone to teach a subject they knew nothing about. You can swot up a certain amount to keep just ahead of the next lesson - but children have a habit of asking questions that are several lessons ahead. Not to ignore the fact that teenagers in secondary school can be little b*****s if they choose.

Child-minding does not come into teaching at all. Non-teachers or teachers from a different subject often have to "cover" when a teacher is off sick, but ideally the real teacher leaves work to do, or the substitute has something relevant to the subject for the class to do. The problem is when there are just not enough qualified teachers around, and the "temporary cover" becomes regular.

Well put, Elegran, and I would also add that some primary school children are only just 4 when they start in Reception.

And some secondary school pupils are like enormous (but immature) men who do not really want to be there.

Enormous young men - I shall never forget the Senior Mixed Choir at Kircaldy High School (around 1957) which comprised the entire 4th, 5th and 6th years, excepting only those who had proved to be capable only of croaking and had been evicted. The "boys" in this choir were young men, singing tenor or baritone or bass. A lot of them came from farming families in darkest Fife, and were capable of doing a man's work on the farm, so keeping them in order was no mean feat.

Enter Aggie Miller, music teacher, a spinster lady of uncertain age, who ruled like a sergeant-major, and would stand no nonsense at all. She ran the best school choir in Scotland for many years, winning regularly at the competitions in the Edinburgh Assembly Rooms. (Buckhaven had the occasional lucky year, but not many)

I would find a discreet way to point out the mistake. I am constantly appalled by the poor spelling and grammar in use today by some so-called professionals. Even some of our major national newspapers have usage which makes one wonder whether poor proof reading or poor education is to blame, and local newspapers are worse. There is a modern school of thought that maintains that poor spelling and grammar are no longer important; that there are more important things to concentrate young minds on. Nothing could be further from the truth. We promote this at our peril.

The lack of basic spelling and grammar is so depressing. As an ex-teacher I have often been known to point out mistakes. My daughter-in-law said that is why she asked grandad to pick the children up from school.

Watching the BBC news programme around 8 am a few days ago, I was amazed to hear their Business Reporter, Steph McGovern, make reference to a picture of Brussel Sprouts behind her with "look at them sprouts". I don't expect such bad grammar from news reporters, I wonder if anyone had a word with her after the programme.

I used to get a light whack from my parents for saying "them" instead of "those"!

I was educated at a point in time when it was decided that understanding grammar and punctuation was only needed at a very basic level. Consequently, even now, I sometimes struggle. I wouldn't know a split infinitive if it came up and smacked me in the face .

I have a friend who is a grammar specialist. She often sends me 'encouraging' messages such as 'When you use an apostrophe incorrectly a puppy dies', in the hope I'll eventually learn something.

Here is her latest attempt to educate me:

1. A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.

2. A dangling modifier walks into a bar. After finishing a drink, the bartender asks it to leave.

3. A question mark walks into a bar?

4. Two quotation marks “walk into” a bar.

5. A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to drink.

6. The bar was walked into by the passive voice.

7. Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They drink. They leave.

SEVEN BAR JOKES INVOLVING GRAMMAR AND PUNCTUATION.

BY ERIC K. AULD

[Originally published November 8, 2011.]