In a recent article in Times Higher Education, professor of criminology at Bucks New University Ken Smith argues that professors should no longer have to correct students’ misspellings. He claims since the English language can be confusing and there are many words that sound different than they are spelled, teachers should just accept the varied spellings.
Some of the changes he suggests are “Febuary” for “February,” “opertunity” for “opportunity,” “arguement” for “argument” and even “thier” for “their.”
Many students have shown their support for this idea. This would mean they could worry less about grammar and remembering all those complicated spellings. My question is are other professors really going to take Smith seriously? I would venture to guess that the majority of teachers in the university realm believe that college students should know how to spell.
Is it just me, or don’t students go to school to learn? Smith’s argument makes absolutely no sense.
He grumbles, “Either we go on beating ourselves and our students up over this problem or we simply give everyone a break and accept these variant spellings as such.”
So what are elementary school teachers suppose to teach children? Do they just take spelling out of the curriculum? He says he wants to “give everyone a break,” but is it really that simple? Kids would become absolutely spoiled and start to believe that they have the right to make their own rules from now on.
I could develop an argument here about how this will cause people to call the color black white, and vice versa. I could even go on to tell you how this would demolish the idea of absolute truth (causing everyone to have their own truth) and how it would change everything many Americans have been taught, but I’ll save that for a better time and place.
I would, however, like to point out that students go to school for 12 to 13 years before college and usually know how to spell by then (or at least know how to use a dictionary or spellcheck).
I do believe there is a place for creativity in school, but grammar isn’t it. Everyone has to learn the basics before they can develop their skills further. Even artists have to learn the fundamentals. Musicians don’t learn to make their own music until they know the scales or the basics of how to play an instrument. Painters must learn the five elements of design before they can create their own masterpieces.
No one just makes up their own rules. If people did, chaos would result. There would be no semblance of uniformity in written works or construction or medicine or any other field. What if an engineer decided to design a bridge not according to the laws of physics, but according to whatever whim he had that day? What if a doctor decided to give a patient a dose of medicine because it simply “felt” right?
There are many times when people feel constrained by rules. They feel like their lives are being interfered with because of them, but rules are there for a reason. There must be some basis for everyone to follow so that we can communicate in a way everyone can understand.
I wonder how well Smith thought this idea through and how much anarchy it could possibly create. Maybe we should try things his way for a week and see how much chaos would ensue. Peraps then he wood re-think his so-cald solushun.
Hannah Kaase is a sophomore majoring in animal and dairy science. She can be contacted at [email protected].