English teacher who regularly misspells words

[Anonymous]

This is not elementary school. Would this bother you? Don't teachers need to have basic knowledge of the subjects they teach?

[Anonymous]

It would bother me. I wouldn’t do or say anything. Teaching is a disaster right now. We brought this on. You just have to deal.

[Anonymous]

Yes, it would. That is sad.

[Anonymous]

No it wouldn’t bother me. Being a good speller doesn’t make you a good English teacher and there’s nothing about being a bad speller doesn’t mean you can’t be a good English teacher. It’s just a brain difference. I’m an excellent speller and always have been through no virtue of my own. But my grammar is just okay and I was always terrible at critical reading and analysis in high school and college level English. Spelling is a minuscule part of English as an academic subject.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No it wouldn’t bother me. Being a good speller doesn’t make you a good English teacher and there’s nothing about being a bad speller doesn’t mean you can’t be a good English teacher. It’s just a brain difference. I’m an excellent speller and always have been through no virtue of my own. But my grammar is just okay and I was always terrible at critical reading and analysis in high school and college level English. Spelling is a minuscule part of English as an academic subject.

Proving my own point. Being a good speller doesn’t mean you can write a coherent sentence lol.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No it wouldn’t bother me. Being a good speller doesn’t make you a good English teacher and there’s nothing about being a bad speller doesn’t mean you can’t be a good English teacher. It’s just a brain difference. I’m an excellent speller and always have been through no virtue of my own. But my grammar is just okay and I was always terrible at critical reading and analysis in high school and college level English. Spelling is a minuscule part of English as an academic subject.

Proving my own point. Being a good speller doesn’t mean you can write a coherent sentence lol.

+1
Spelling and comprehension are BASIC skills that elementary school teachers should have in order to teach well.

But agree with other PPs that note we are stuck with what we have re: teachers at the moment, unfortunately.

[Anonymous]

Yes it would. My kid had an upper elementary school teacher that would "correct" the kids' writing with poor spelling and grammar. It was awful.

[Anonymous]

Maybe at the elementary level but not otherwise. In high school teachers aren’t teaching spelling so I really don’t care.

[Anonymous]

No, just like it doesn’t bother me if a calculus teacher makes mental arithmetic mistakes. Has nothing to do with their ability to teach the subject.

[Anonymous]

Spelling and teaching English are completely different, OP.

[Anonymous]

Many dyslexics are terrible spellers. That doesn't mean they can't read or are bad at teaching.

Without knowing exactly what words are being misspelled or any real details on the situation, it's hard for me to comment.

[Anonymous]

When the pay is low, you attract those with a crap education. Do what they do in Finland and pay $$$$$ for the best candidates. Make it competitive. You also need to overhaul working conditions. Nobody in their right mind would choose public education as it exists today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many dyslexics are terrible spellers. That doesn't mean they can't read or are bad at teaching.

Without knowing exactly what words are being misspelled or any real details on the situation, it's hard for me to comment.

Sorry, but if any teacher (ESPECIALLY an English teacher) is regularly misspelling words that the kids see then they are a terrible teacher. First, do no harm. Even if they never actually teach anything, at least they shouldn’t be teaching students incorrect spelling. We want our kids to respect our teachers and believe them when they say something or write something. Regularly misspelling words is 100% unacceptable. And yes, I would get my kid out of that class and tell everyone why.

It’s shocking that we even need to point that out.

[Anonymous]

You know what I do not like, as a teacher? A parent that has no parenting skills. That bothers me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No it wouldn’t bother me. Being a good speller doesn’t make you a good English teacher and there’s nothing about being a bad speller doesn’t mean you can’t be a good English teacher. It’s just a brain difference. I’m an excellent speller and always have been through no virtue of my own. But my grammar is just okay and I was always terrible at critical reading and analysis in high school and college level English. Spelling is a minuscule part of English as an academic subject.

This. Above ES spelling isn’t taught in English. In my district, spelling doesn’t appear on any secondary English rubrics because the expectation is that students will use a computer to type their essays. Therefore, a spelling error or the lack of one doesn’t measure whether a kid can spell only the accuracy of their typing and whether they remember to use spell-check. I don’t teach English. One frustration I deal with is when a student has written language goals that focus on spelling although it isn’t evaluated at all in my discipline or any other subject after 5th grade. We don’t teach it so we don’t evaluate it and no, there’s not been any progress toward meeting the goal of 80% free of spelling errors because it is not an appropriate goal anymore.