College students who cannot spell or form complete sentences

There's a simple answer to your question.

Teachers are not tested rigorously enough before being allowed to teach.

Teacher's unions want higher salaries and job security, yet many members of their union are absolutely unfit to teach anything beyond colors and the alphabet.

I'm not going to disagree with you on the supply teacher thing, though I would have assumed that the regular teacher or head of faculty would have left a lesson plan on things to go over with the students?

I'm 25 now, I can't even bring myself to purposefully write incorrectly. I was one of the 'bright' kids in class. Top of most of my classes apart for math. Yet it is no surprise to me that the kids who mucked about in lessons, are the ones who don't give a rats behind about how they talk or spell.

So I'm 50/50 on this one. Yes, it may be down to how we are/were taught, but I think it is also down to the pupil too.

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

Reading and writing is a skill. The more books you read, the better you get at reading and spelling. The more you write, the better your writing will get.

You're right about the subjects being taught. At least 3/4 of school stuff I got was absolute rubbish. It was either that or the teachers were just rubbish at teaching. It went in one ear and out the other.

I have to agree with OP, wigit and starwise on this one..
Personally I feel rather fortunate to have been schooled at a time when oral reading and writing one to one checks were the norm from infant school. Dad fueled my hunger for books, so couple this with a number of inspiring teachers over the years I couldn't really go far wrong.

I'm sure I'm not the only person surprised to find that years later English teacher's aren't interested in spelling. I'm no literary genius myself, but I've worn down my molars grinding my teeth in despair at how many obvious errors I've spotted in school newsletters.

Even my son is down in the dumps about it. I explained to him that the more he reads, the more he attempts to spell properly the better it will get. Use it wherever you can, no matter who you are writing too or for. Whether this be one of his "r u ther" mates on MSN or a silly note to some girl in school he's crushing over. Repetition will win out in the end, and stop people, including prospective employers in the future assuming you are a illiterate idiot.

I highly recommend Charlotte Iserbyt's book, The Deliberate Dumbing Down Of America. It's a free download. And has many quotes from those involved with the educational system in this country.

I second the OP. I have seen this and worse from teens and adults. Come to think of it, I've seen it right here on ATS several times.

Wigit is right in his assertions. Reading increases vocabulary, and helps train the mind in proper sentence structure. A better vocabulary increases your ability to communicate effectively.

Our children are not being taught the importance of good communication skills. Andf they are being given no reason to desire these skills.

At the same time, we, as a whole have not considered the long term effect of this potential pandemic. The inevitable inability to relate ideas and concepts to one another as a species would be disastrous. How do you communicate something you no longer have a word for? And what if you knew the word, but nobody understood it?

reply to post by wigit


Not only switch off the telly but video games as well.
I don't have a problem with kids' playing games now
and then.I would like to see my grandchildren read more
books instead of being on their computers playing games.

reply to post by Starwise


Great that you are homeschooling your children.I have 22
grandchildren and most of them are homeschooled.

I am 57 years old and I stopped writing in cursive back in
junior high.I am a lefty and my writing always had a slant
to it.When I started to print everything people could read
my writing better.

They want a broken system. an uneducated population cannot make educated decisions.





They want us dumb.

Schools currently teach by sight words and no longer focus on sounds. When I pulled my daughter out of public school I learned this first hand. She had no idea how to sound out a word. Having to reeducate her has been difficult, but worth it.

As far as what does teaching cursive writing have to do with it? If you were a teacher you would understand. I currently don't have more time to go into greater depth with this. I have seen young adults embarrassed because they cannot read a letter written by someone in handwriting...Do you realize how much teaching is lost in a generation who cannot read cursive writing? I have many letters passed down generations from my family, I would be horrified if my child could not read them. Its history.

I truly feel sorry for the millennium generation.......

Reading more books, watching less TV and playing less video games is the answer. Family values and education based on the individual is key, not the community of sheeple being processed by public schools.

Ignorance breeds ignorance. Deny Ignorance....

reply to post by Starwise


I don't see how a young adult couldn't read it as cursive NOT being taught in school is a rather new development. They probably had bad handwriting, which is hard to read in cursive. I'm 20 and everyone I've ever known knows how to read cursive. When I was in the 12th grade (3 years ago) most of the teachers wrote on the smart board in cursive. That's thousands of students everyday reading it. Half of the signs on the wall were in cursive. And from googling "state removes cursive from curriculum", all of the stories I saw were from 2003+. A young adult would have to be born in 1993 at maximum therefore still being taught cursive.

Teaching kids how to type makes 1000000000000000000000x more sense. It's practical and you will actually use it in your lifetime...cursive, not so much. As it's not 1776 anymore. The constitution has beautiful pen-man ship but the content of the words is what matters most.

reply to post by Starchildren


Education, it seems it's a "loosing" battle these days...

Originally posted by Starchildren
As a first year college student, I've been encountering a great deal of students in their early to mid twenties who can barely spell properly, form a cohesive sentence, and produce a structured thought. I know that my own grammar probably suffers as well, so I don't intend to personally judge someone. But I do want to understand why there are so many people in this age bracket struggling with this. In class yesterday, someone wrote out a sentence in "text message lingo", ie: wen u get bak from th store we cn go shopping. i hv enuff money. c u latr.

Good grief that's bad.

I am astonished that the professor accepted this format. I'm disturbed by people who cannot communicate a general idea in writing, let alone verbally. Here's an example I snipped from one of my classes, I will not use the person's name:

"How the heart pump is a pump. Blood comes inside it threw it and it pumps into cells and goes around in veins like the capillaries. Lung you breath it in like inspiring breath you do take. Once you take air inside you breathe. That oxygen goes to your head".

This is someone whose first language is English, and is currently serving in our military over in Afghanistan.

Why does our youth graduate from school with the vocabulary level of a toddler? How is this happening, and why is it allowed to happen? How are they getting into college? My 8 year old has better language skills than most of these people I'm in college with.

Something must change with our education. It is truly broken.

Twenty five years ago none of my professors would allowed that to slip by much less act as if it was normal. Believe it or not this was all by design, to have a feeble-minded society obsessed with shiny objects and flashy people. Nothing you deal with in this society is by accident. Everything has been carefully plotted but like all good plans there are imperfections that can cause backfiring. People like you are those imperfections in their plans because you can recognize something's wrong.

reply to post by Starchildren

"How the heart pump is a pump. Blood comes inside it threw it and it pumps into cells and goes around in veins like the capillaries. Lung you breath it in like inspiring breath you do take. Once you take air inside you breathe. That oxygen goes to your head".

This is someone whose first language is English, and is currently serving in our military over in Afghanistan.

Now you know why they joined the military.

I agree with an earlier poster: Reading makes a world of difference.

I spent my childhood reading. I was not as much into fiction as my mother and brother, but I spent countless hours reading dictionaries, encyclopedias, science and weather books, books about foreign places..the list goes on.

Spelling and grammar are very important to me. I am not saying I don't make a few mistakes here and there, but I simply cannot tolerate mass spelling and grammatical errors. It is important enough, that when I received a message from a woman online that she was having an affair with my husband, I corrected the massive mistakes in her letter and returned it to her. I was not even sure what upset me most..that he was a huge liar and cheater, or that he had messed with someone who could barely form a coherent sentence. Being that he has a PhD, I expected more from him I guess.

My children are homeschooled. I am very proud of my 17 year old, who is graduating this year. She posts here on ATS, and many comment about how mature and intelligent she appears in her replies. Many are surprised if she reveals her age. She struggles to understand her peers who converse in a mixture of textspeak and mutilated "English".

My son started kindergarten this year. I chose to put him in a charter program so he could experience two days a week of interaction with peers and teachers. The other three schooldays are at home.
My son was born 6 weeks early and has Sensory Processing Disorder. It is very frustrating for him because his brain has to process the senses we all take for granted in a more deliberate manner. Instead of it coming naturally, he has to work it through. It has nothing to do with intelligence. Imagine having a world of thoughts in your brain, but very stilted fine motor skills so you can not put on paper what you want to express.
I worried at the start of the school year that he would struggle. But we have worked together every day. I was so proud that he started reading..and now reads Tintin books to himself (his favorite) and everything he can get his little paws on. I taught him skip counting and other tricks for math.
When we had our conference, his teacher told me he was the highest reader in both Kindergarten classes, both tracks, (80 students in all) and she had to borrow books from third grade for him. We discussed basic writing and she had noted that he was spelling his words correctly about 95% of the time and wanted to know how he "knew" how to do that. When I told her that we do spelling lists every day and worked a mixture of whole-word and phonetics, she seemed very surprised. She said "Well our focus is to get the students to start writing. Spelling comes much later."
Am I the only one who thinks words should be taught correctly from day 1?

Considering that the lecture in class today was on the allosteric properties of hemoglobin and myoglobin, no, I don't see this as being a problem. However, I took an "intro to religious studies" course last semester to fill time, and it is a liberal arts class. I definitely saw people in that class that had a very hard time forming an opinion, stating it, and supporting it.

My classmates are all very intelligent, but I'm in a difficult major at a good school so I think it depends. Maybe something like english comp 1 at State Community.

LoL...

I see your OP on the messed up Jar-head sentences... and I raise you with Ebonics.

i.e.:

Ebonics: "She BIN had dat han'-made dress" (Proper English: She's had that hand-made dress for a long time, and still does.)
Ebonics: "Befo' you know it, he be done aced de tesses." (Proper English: Before you know it, he will have already aced the tests.)
Ebonics: "Ah 'on know what homey be doin." (Proper English: I don't know what my friend is usually doing.)
Ebonics: "Can't nobody tink de way he do." (Proper English: Nobody can think the way he does.)
Ebonics: "I ast Ruf could she bring it ovah to Tom crib." (Proper English: I asked Ruth if/whether she could bring it over to Tom's place.)

Ever seen this video about the dumbing down of society?

For me it was the complete opposite. Oh well.

Originally posted by HolgerTheDane
Ever seen this video about the dumbing down of society?

Banned in my country on copyright grounds.


.....F*** DAT ****!

reply to post by Starchildren


Short answer.... No Child Left Behind. Now I know, that particular program came out not too long ago, but the federal government has been dumbing down education (in the interest of "fairness") in the public school system since the Department of Education was created in 1979 and began operating in 1980. For evidence of this look at the national averages since then... they have declined significantly. Another reason are tenured teachers that don't give a damn, and are there for the paycheck, benefits, and future pension upon retirement. These teachers pass kids along just to get them out of their hair. Along with this is the power of teacher unions, which make it almost impossible to fire a bad teacher, but teacher unions can be discussed at greater length in another thread if you so desire. Last, but certainly not least, are the parents that have not played a role in their child's educational development, and instead left that role up to the indoctrination process of our progressive public school system. All of this is just scratching the surface as to why college students barely have any basic educational or life skills, as you have clearly already noticed, but they are in for a hard core reality check in college.