Words 2 hard.

The National Spelling Bee got protesters claiming that the English Language is too difficult of spell. They obviously haven't tried their hand at figuring out Mandarin. These people were in Bee costumes advocating for the simplification of our language in its written form. I swear I thought this story was from the Onion, but oh no. These morons were serious.

Remember back a few years ago when some schools were angsting so hard over the self esteem of their students that they start encouraging student to write words how they felt they should be spelled? Same thought patterns as this, proving that in many cases stupid is not very original. Its bad enough, oh I'm sorry, enuf that we have kids exercising horrible grammar and spelling in texts and on the internet. Now there's an actual teacher advocating for this to be the norm.

No, sorry. Your job as a teacher to make the kids smarter, not try to get the subject material dumbed down. The rules of the English language can be a bit tricky at times, but if The Electric Company on PBS can get the rules across then a teacher should too.



As a guy who has spent a bit of time on internet forums I know that there you are judged by your spelling and grammar almost as much as the ideals or viewpoints you present. Take old Deffie McDouchebag, my former would-be nemesis, for instance. His concepts of reality were clearly off the mark to the point that most would have dealt with him online theorize that he has some sort of mental disorder, but this was only once you were able to decipher the ramblings through his Godawful spelling and grammar. Now, I'm by no means perfect with my spelling and grammar, as anyone who has read anything of mine can attest, however making the best effort to master the language to clearly put forth your thoughts will get you taken a lot more seriously than using 'chatspeak'.

So too those protesters at the Spelling Bee: sit down and shut up. Those kids participating in there likely have a better grasp of the language than you or I do. Instead of trying to make things stupid, why do you try pushing yourself and (the notion that there are educators in this group actually pains me) try pushing your students to the excellence that those kids completing have accomplished.