How long do kids have to go to school until they learn to spell things halfway decently? Or to speak with the correct tense of a verb? Mr. Mouse pointed out to me this morning that some little meeces we know have been in school for 5-6 years and are still writing like those that have been in school 2 years or less. There are also some speaking issues–no little meeces “rund-ed fast”–they “ran fast”. Is it too much to expect a fifth grader to be able to spell “been there” and not “bean ther” when writing something? I know 2 generations ago, lots of kids only had 6th grade educations, they didn’t have computers to spell-check for them, and they could spell “been there”–what does this say about our education system? Is it that much worse than 80 years ago, and if so, why?
