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Reading Al's rant about discourteous drivers made me wonder whether I have a pet rant of the day.
I can probably find a new one every day without a lot of trying - and having had my car stolen recently I certainly agree with him about the pleasures of dealing with insurance companies etc.

But that isn't today's grumble.
Today I want to ask - if America's teachers are all as good as they tell us they are, how is it that each and every day I get emails and other correspondence from the great unwashed who are unable to distinguish between "there" and "their" and "too" and "to" or "break" and "brake".
The problem doesn't stop with those who may have had an underprivileged education. I get missives from the marketing departments of big corporations which talk of doing "do diligence" on a deal - a clear case of a problem not being highlighted on a spellcheck program.
I find all sorts of folks who think that the third dimension after length and breadth is "heighth".
And don't start me off on the apostrophe 's'. Those things get scattered around like leaves on an autumn wind and it seems that fewer and fewer know the rules of grammar governing their use.
Maybe it really doesn't matter, and maybe some day the Dept of Education will issue new (or knew?) instructions just to "rite it lyk it souns" Until that day dawns the message to 'Americas teacher's is pull yourselfs up to your full heighth and choo there eers when they make mistaykes!'

I want to thank David for this inspirational observation. It was hard for me not to correct and edit this article, but I have left it just as it was submitted. I have to agree with his premise, and believe me, my unabridged dictionary gets lots of use! Let me know how you feel.
        Ed

Comments and Responses:

Eric Richiger - 9/8/02

I first would like to state that I am not a schoolteacher. I am a systems analyst. I don't feel the blame for the poor quality of education in America should be placed on teachers. The reason why the quality of education in America is so poor is because Americans are selfish and don't really value education anymore. If Americans truly valued education, teachers wouldn't be paid the obscenely low wages they are paid, schools would have funding to provide decent facilities, adequate staff and adequate supplies for their students and parents would take an active role in their children's educations. It's far easier to blame someone else for our own lack of initiative than to accept responsibility for problems we create ourselves. People are willing to pay outrages fees to go to a ballgame (as evidenced by the player's multimillion dollar salaries), but are unwilling to pay for a decent public education system. Parents dump all of the responsibility of raising their children on schoolteachers who only see their children a few hours a day. Most parents treat teachers like free babysitters, but place the responsibility of properly raising their children on them. Get real. If you want your children to have a decent education, start investing your time and money in their education rather than pushing the responsibility off on other people.

The out of control growth of population has placed a tremendous strain on the budgets of all the school systems nationwide. The unfortunate reality is that income to the school systems haven't been able to keep pace with the increase in demand (this could be a subject for continued debate as to why there isn't enough money). Perhaps parents need to contribute more to their children's education and take the responsibility for the additional costs. Our society cannot continue to encourage people to have more and more children when there is no means to support these children and the State (the People) should not be expected to bear the costs. There should also be an educational requirement (among other requirements) for prospective parents before they are allowed to bring children into this world. If parents cannot support their children financially as well as educationally they should not expect anyone else to do the job for them. No one has a right to burden anyone else and force undue hardships on others because they selfishly want to have children they cannot support (don't write to me and tell me that people have a "Right" to have children, that's another subject based on certain specific religious beliefs). Don't blame the underpaid teachers, the hard working people, the well meaning education system or anyone else for the problems of education, it's the PARENT'S responsibility and I blame them most of all for the decline in the quality of education. It's not just about the children, it's about EVERYONE. Obviously I could go on and write a book about this subject, but this isn't a good place to do that, so I'll leave that up to others who are more qualified (I am a product of public education after all).
        Ed