So 6yo KG's starting first grade in gifted private school next week -- switch from public K.

He got a postcard today in the mail from his new teacher, which read:

"Dear KG,

Your going to have a fantastic year!

From Mrs. P"

Umm ... hello? This is a (not cheap) school for gifted children! This is our first communication with you! You have a room full of gifted first and second graders, I have to assume many/most of them can read, and this is the *first* thing we get from you -- a misspelt communication?

I'm just a little irked by this. Is this indicative of the level of care put into the education of my child?

I'm probably overreacting, but this is ... well, annoying in its carelessness, and doesn't exactly inspire confidence in this teacher, iykwim. Of course, I *am* a copy editor and probably a little particular about these things, but still.

I'm sure I won't, but I have half a mind to walk up to the headmistress, hold up the postcard and just say, "*Really*?"

Thanks for letting me vent.

Hey Mia. I know what you mean. DS's first GT teacher sent home a page-long letter with tons of problems like that and, on top of that, the syntax was so weird we had no idea what she was even trying to say. I had that sinking feeling in my stomach when I read it and like you I wanted to complain.

But, she turned out to be one of DS's best teachers. She was always weird and never linear and she always drove me a little nuts. But she was the one who arranged for DS's acceleration in math; she "got" him and always had new games and puzzles especially for him; she arranged to pull him out for GT during the most boring subject; and she was the one who first told me that DS was "highly gifted."

As we discussed on another thread, being smart and being able to spell can be different. Wait to see what she has to offer before you decide. But keep the postcard, just in case....

Oh.....I know the feeling! We had a rare perfect spelling test from DD11 that was topped with the words "Your the best".

On the other hand, it COULD be just a careless mistake. I'd try to let it go, but you can bet I'd be proofing further notes with great scrutiny!

On still a third hand (while we're going a little crazy), there's my VERY dear posting friend, who shall remain nameless who can't spell her way out of a paper bag. I find her brilliant, and she "gets" things I totally miss in life.

(hoping for no typos above!)

I'd totally be annoyed too, and spelling, grammar, etc aren't my strongest areas. Especially for an expensive GT school. Hopefully it is a one time thing and you have a great year!

LMAO, Dottie! I'd have cried, I can't *stand* that stuff.

I'm hoping it was just a careless error and that she's brilliant in other ways ... on the other hand, didn't she write this postcard out 14 times??

<pulls hair out>

That kind of stuff really bugs me. It says a lot about our sound-byte-, multiple-choice-exam-driven education system.

That said, in this case, there's not much you can do about it, so I'd sit tight and hope she was tired or just made a mistake on a single card.

Now: I will provided some levity related to this theme, in honor of the long weekend. The first two pieces show that We Aren't The Only Ones Who Notice This Stuff. The third one is simply and wonderfully funny.

They were all written by Dave Barry. You can find them on the web.

Dear Mister Language Person: What is the purpose of the apostrophe?

Answer: The apostrophe is used mainly in hand-lettered small business signs
to alert the reader than an "S" is coming up at the end of a word, as in:
WE DO NOT EXCEPT PERSONAL CHECK'S, or: NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ITEM'S.
Another important grammar concept to bear in mind when creating hand- lettered
small-business signs is that you should put quotation marks around random
words for decoration, as in "TRY" OUR HOT DOG'S, or even TRY "OUR" HOT DOG'S.
-- Dave Barry, "Tips" for Writer's

AND


Dear Mister Language Person: I am curious about the expression, "Part of
this complete breakfast". The way it comes up is, my 5-year-old will be
watching TV cartoon shows in the morning, and they'll show a commercial for
a children's compressed breakfast compound such as "Froot Loops" or "Lucky
Charms", and they always show it sitting on a table next to some actual food
such as eggs, and the announcer always says: "Part of this complete
breakfast". Don't that really mean, "Adjacent to this complete breakfast",
or "On the same table as this complete breakfast"? And couldn't they make
essentially the same claim if, instead of Froot Loops, they put a can of
shaving cream there, or a dead bat?

Answer: Yes.
-- Dave Barry, "Tips" for Writer's


The next one has absolutely nothing to do with the abuse of the English language, but it's Friday night and I'm sitting here typing (?!?) and I always laugh aloud when I read it:

Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV":

So Richard and I decided to try to catch [the small shark]. With a great deal of strategy and effort and shouting, we managed to maneuver the shark, over the course of about a half-hour, to a sort of corner of the lagoon, so that it had no way to escape other than to flop up onto the land and evolve. Richard and I were inching toward it, sort of crouched over, when all of a sudden it turned around and--I can still remember the sensation I felt at that moment, primarily in the armpit area -- headed right straight toward us. Many people would have panicked at this point. But Richard and I were not "many people." We were experienced waders, and we kept our heads. We did exactly what the textbook says you should do when you're unarmed and a shark that is nearly two feet long turns on you in water up to your lower calves: We sprinted I would say 600 yards in the opposite direction, using a sprinting style such that the bottoms of our feet never once went below the surface of the water. We ran all the way to the far shore, and if we had been in a Warner Brothers cartoon we would have run right INTO the beach,and you would have seen these two mounds of sand racing across the island until they bonked into trees and coconuts fell onto their heads.

Val

I love Dave Barry!

Late to the party, but I just wanted to say that the spelling and grammar problem seems to be more common than not among pre-K and early elementary teachers. It annoys the fool out of me, too, Mia, but EVERY letter that we've ever gotten from any of DS's teachers has had some similar mistake--usually more than one. EVERY letter!

I've learned to ignore it. Honestly, I think it says more about the state of education and our low expectations for teachers than it does about the person who made the mistake. Sad, I know, but it's what has kept me from red-lining the notes and sending them back!

My favorite kind of comedy!

I think I need to start going on vacation by myself for the first two weeks of school! I seem to get all wound up at this time, every year. Mia, I really an NOT saying you are overreacting.....I know the school, it is A LOT of money!!!!!

This feeling you have is totally valid, pretty much WTF?!?!?!?

Coming from someone who just recently took that feeling, ramped it up, and pretty much let it turn me into a little monster for a few days...............

I say: keep the postcard, chuck the feeling(for now) and hope for the best. The school really does have a stellar rep.

Oh my. I thought elementary teachers are at least pretty good in spelling while their math knowledge and understanding is usually not too good. I guess I was wrong.

Those kind of mistakes irritate me. But I've learned some very gifted people are still very poor spellers. Take a deep breath and let it out slowly; then watch how things progress in her classroom.

I do admit that some mistakes by my elementary teachers have remained in my memory. I still remember a substitute 4th grade teacher trying to tell us 4 divided by 0 was 4. She didn't believe me that you can't divide by 0 until we went through 4/2 & 4/1, she was still a bit puzzled by the whole thing. So, I think it's a bigger problem when the kid starts finding the teacher's mistakes, and how it's handled then can make a difference in the child's attitude toward teachers & school.

Keep in mind too that classroom aides are typically VERY low paid, low qualifications, etc. In our district we have lots of "retired" professional moms in those rolls, and many are actually highly educated. But we also have some at the other extreme. The job pays < $9.00/hour. Most are VERY good kid people, etc....but not always the sharpest tools in the shed.

My point here is that they often do some of the "grunt" work for the teachers, as do parent volunteers. I know I've graded quite a few papers myself. I use my spelling example all the time, but I truly loved the teachers she had that year, and highly suspect one of the other possibilities for the "your the best" paper.

Sadly, all the mistakes we got came from the teachers themselves. They were in their handwriting or were in a lengthy, typed "beginning of school" note, with no aides at all and no volunteers in the classroom yet.

I just chalk it up to par for the course. Hopefully it means that they're "go with the flow" types of people, flexible, not sticklers for rules that don't matter, right? Optimism!

(That held true for two of the 4 teachers DS7 had, so there's hope that that's what it means...)

Aww, your all the best! Thanks for listening to me whine. I was just ... ugh. Not the best way to start the year! It was definitely from the teacher herself -- there are no aides at the new school, KG's only got 14 kids in his class.

Optimism!