College students who cannot spell or form complete sentences

College students? How about college graduates? A big problem here is that we have evolved a culture that insists everyone should succeed, so we can't fail anyone because they might feel bad. In short, we have replaced equality of opportunity with equality of achivement. Throw accusations of racism into the mix and you see why schools won't hold students accountable. Everyone gets a trophy so that no one can be accused of discrimination.

This is as true for admissions as it is for grading and classroom work. Indiscriminate admissions policies favor mediocre students getting into a school for reasons other than academic ability. It is no longer a matter of personal responsibility being a good student. If you are disadvantaged, it can't possibly be your fault. This results in a crop of college graduates that employers cannot reply upon to have even basic skills, therefore the value of a college degree, especially in the social sciences, falls to less than the level of a high school diploma in the fifties.

Originally posted by OptimusSubprime
Another reason are tenured teachers that don't give a damn, and are there for the paycheck, benefits, and future pension upon retirement.

How can you give a damn if you know that what you are teaching isn't what students need and can't teach what you know would be best to make those little minds work and become intelligent adults.

"No child left behind" is a system perfect for teachers with no teaching skill whatsoever and at the same time, removes most perks from the best teachers.

Originally posted by mamabeth
Not only switch off the telly but video games as well.

A couple years ago, I would of argued with you because, games back then actually taught me many english words and we're challenging.

Now, you don't have to read in games anymore, you can change it to the language you want and "no gamer left behind" made almost all games pathetically easy.

Shouldn't humans evolve instead of dumbing down? Wouldn't that be better for humanity?

Oh, foolish me, I forgot the ones making the decisions want to stay on top by bringing everyone down instead.

Originally posted by RealSpoke
I'm in college and have never seen something that bad. A lot of people cannot spell properly, but spelling doesn't equate intelligence.

In Ohio you have to pass graduation tests to get a high school diploma. English is one of the sections, so you can't really be horrible..unless you get a GED.

Seriously? Did you actually just say that? Really???????

Originally posted by wigit
It's because they didn't read enough books growing up. Schools spend too much time changing from one subject to the next, hour after hour, year in year out, and teachers think "I've told them about this , now they know it" then she ticks her little box. Most things need repeated or learned by experience. REPETITION! REPETITION!

Parents should keep the TV off and only use it as the occasional treat, or if there's a learning programme on.

I grew up with three TV channels. So if there were no cartoons on I'd have to sit through a nature documentary or whatever else was on. When my mum watched Ironside or Kojak or some crap hospital drama, I'd turn to my books.

I've two sons. The older one can spell and form complete sentences, he sailed through school and left with higher maths, physics, etc, my other son is an academic failure. I don't need to say which one was the avid reader. With your first child you pay more attention to what he's doing, in case you fail them, or you think they'll fail you. That's your "practise child". When another comes along you're more relaxed and let things go and only later you see what could have been done different. I wish I'd gotten my second son to love books.

Mums and dads switch your telly off.

edit on 24-2-2012 by wigit because: speling misteak

Being an avid reader does not equate intelligence. Many people can not read a book because of attention,concentration or other problems and yet, they are still extremely intelligent.

Just because one likes to read and does so frequently does not make him/her smarter in any way , shape or form.

That is one of the biggest fallacies out here.

I know janitors ,mechanics and security guards smarter than most people today with PHD's and the like.

Anyone can excel due to cronyism. Look at G. Bush and Odumbass for the proof of that statement.

Maybe you should get to know some of them, maybe they are very skilled at math, or playing an instrument, or love history. I know plenty of people of who are, lets say, not very eloquent, but also very talented in other areas.

In my experience, intelligence should not be judged by grammar or spelling.

Originally posted by nightstalker78
reply to post by FFS4000

 

Yeah,it's always "tptb" fault.Or it's much simplier,some people are just dumb.Or have learning disabilities.

Either way,the examples the op gave are pure b.s. in my eyes.They look like they were written by someone in 2nd grade."How the heart pump is a pump".Seriously? Gonna have to provide a little more proof for me to believe they were written by an adult.

edit on 24-2-2012 by nightstalker78 because: (no reason given)

edit on 24-2-2012 by nightstalker78 because: (no reason given)

He also misspelled "through" . Instead he said the blood went "threw". LOLOL Now his argument is valid but, if you are going to call people on it at least be up to par. lolol

Originally posted by RealSpoke
reply to post by wigit

 

Repetition doesn't really teach anything other than skills. Like art or how to play basketball.

If you are NOT interested in the subject being taught, then you will NOT remember much of it. I don't remember 99.9% of math I learned in school, even though I repeated it throughout the years. I would repeat it/study it and then on the test get a D. I never really LEARNED IT.

If you are in college and cannot read or write in this day and age it has nothing to do with the television. The person probably has a learning disability.

Repeating is the problem. Critical thinking is no longer taught to our children.

Its like in "Good will Hunting" when they had the scene at the bar in which Matt Damon's character called out Mr Regurgitate for not having an original thought of his own.

As far as having a learning disability when it comes to people that can not read or write. I believe this is true but, it is also true that the teachers just plain suck.

Detroit schools have over %50 illiteracy rate and even their former superintendent could not read or write.

This is the fault of TPTB whether anyone wants to admit it or not.

We are being made dumb on purpose for control as future slaves. There is no doubt in my mind that the ultimate goal is walking mindless humans.

I agree, I was reading my fiancés daughters Facebook and I couldn't
understand half of the conversations on there. english words had a whole different meaning

I understand that it's difficult to take my word for it. If I could snip the discussion posts and post them without getting into any trouble, I would. It is an open enrollment school that I wanted to pick up some of my general studies at, and move along. I just didn't expect to encounter such a high amount of students who had serious difficulties with the English language.

Please don't feel that I'm trying to criticize them, as I don't know what has happened in their lives for them to end up with these problems. I suppose I should actually be commending their efforts to go to school.

I also was not particularly picking on the soldier who couldn't spell, but confounded by why he has not been educated after serving six years in the military. He's a really good guy, with a family and has great ideas.

I was talking with my mom the other day who said that education in the public school system pretty much began to suffer in the 80's.

I remember getting graded on penmanship, now it's your ability to type and how many wpm. They are starting children off on computers right away, in preschool and kindergarten. I have nothing against this, but at the same time, how much learning is being stunted?

If you no longer have to be able to write well, then I suppose the only thing important is the ability to write in text message format?

I don't want to bash all teachers, but I think there are way too many of them that should not be working with children, that are very impatient, and do not care anymore. When a teacher put on "The Little Mermaid" in math class for my daughter to watch, while the teacher was busy on her laptop, I knew we were in trouble.

Originally posted by alienorgy
Repeating is the problem. Critical thinking is no longer taught to our children.

Critical thinking is the last thing you'll need to succeed in school, it's actually in the way.
Best thing is to repeat exactly the same thing and not think about it, because when you think about it, you make connections with other ideas and realize that what you learned was incomplete or plain false.

I used to hear the teachers being blamed a lot when I was in school, but didn't accept it then either. I was in class with 20 or so other kids and one or two who had problems vs. 20 getting it seems to point to the kids being the problem. Seemed like it was not due to learning disorders but rather to them being douchebags.

Now as an adult working at a job in a college town which puts me in regular contact with the students, I'm finding many of them to be snotty dumbasses with a sense of entitlement who think they're clever. Some that I have worked with have been smart responsible people but they are the exceptions.


The problem I'm seeing with many many young 20 somethings is that they take any instruction or correction as an attack or insult and wave it off with a "what's the big deal" attitude, then continue with the same behavior. Nothing is their fault or responsibility. For example, they feel it's the towing company's fault their car was taken for being illegally parked not their fault for ignoring the signs and parking illegally.

My native language is Norwegian, but i learned alot from television and games when i was young so didn't have bad accent like my dad has when he speaks English, it was a time i text-ed short words on games online and phones but after awhile i started to write English test i completely started to auto write bad short words. i saw it quickly so i immediately started writing properly, even tho i have writing errors time to time... as you see now at my comment

the things that boggles me everytime i see TV is all the use of the words: "like", "you know" at teenagers shows