Beech Speling - Who Needs Literacy When We’ve Got iPods?

Today was one of those days I wished I had a camera with me as I did the morning beach walk.

I would have been able to capture the bold announcement in the sand:

LANNA WAS HEAR

Washed away now, no doubt.

Of course we know from the OECD that Australian students have one of the highest literacy rates in the world. We also know that the test does not include speling - or even gramer.

I feel for the generation or two of kids and young adults who have been so seriously short-changed in the cause of educational “reform”. How seriously can a prospective employer in, say, a law firm or a consultancy business be expected to take a young graduate who can’t spell and has no understanding of grammar?

Of course, every good teacher wants to prepare his or her students as well as possible for life, but it doesn’t have to be an either/or thing. As a high school history teacher I found the curriculum very old-fashioned and restrictive, but I knew my students were going to be examined on that. I did not feel I had any right to limit their potential because I had a supposedly more elevated view of the field of history. My solution was to develop ways to fast-track them through the “official” material, put the onus on them do to more at home and then devote as much class time as possible to really getting into history as an exciting intellectual discipline, teaching them how to fish in those waters, so to speak.

But no worries, the OECD says we’re fine on the old literacy front, mate. And we can just download stuff now and learn from our iPods, can’t we?

Now, what was that cricket score?