Education, Teachers and Spelling: Nitpicking

Nitpicking

By Unteachable - 08/02/2017 06:00 - United States

Today, as a high school English teacher, I had to read submissions for a writing contest. The entries were filled with words like "irregardless", "could of", "acrost", and "ain't". These papers were supposedly written by the best students in the school. FML

I agree, your life sucks 7 298

You deserved it 809

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Same thing different taste

Despair

By TeachingSucks - 17/05/2023 11:00 - United States - Cabot

Today, I'm grading final projects for a junior level college class. A student finally turned in their work, after months of encouragement and coaxing. Half of it was plain wrong, the rest had so many spelling and grammatical mistakes, it appeared to be written by a drunk autocorrect program. FML

I agree, your life sucks 703

You deserved it 120

By Anonymous - 24/05/2018 19:00

Today, after submitting a 500-word essay to a writing contest, I found out that I lost to someone who wrote 3 sentences. FML

I agree, your life sucks 4 016

You deserved it 504

America, hell yeah brother

By Anonymous - 03/10/2012 23:00 - United States - Tallahassee

Today, my teacher's comments on my essay read, "I know it's college, but you use a lot of unnecessary words with a lot of syllables." He basically scolded me for having a complex vocabulary. I go to an accredited state university. Nothing says "America" like under-achieving professors. FML

I agree, your life sucks 28 317

You deserved it 8 341

By leah_kascar - 22/08/2016 01:45 - United States - Hialeah

Today, in the class I'm teaching, I assigned my students an essay to complete for homework. One student asked me if I was deducting points for bad spelling. I teach English. FML

I agree, your life sucks 17 015

You deserved it 2 386

By badessaymyass - 17/04/2014 19:59 - United States - Phoenix

Today, I had my teacher look over my essay before turning it in. He said it was extremely well-written, so I handed it in. When I got it back, the feedback he left said it was one of the worst essays he'd ever read. FML

I agree, your life sucks 53 118

You deserved it 4 617

By Anonymous - 31/10/2011 10:09 - United Kingdom

Today, I turned in an overdue English assignment at college. My instructor accused me of plagiarism, writing that my sentence structure was "TO" good. Seriously? FML

I agree, your life sucks 37 051

You deserved it 4 404

Underfunded and underappreciated

By lrn2spel, teach - This FML is from back in 2013 but it's good stuff - United States - Mogadore

Today, I got back the essay I wrote about how my country's education system is fucked. At one point, I made a spelling mistake. My teacher wrote a note about it, basically calling me illiterate, and telling me to pay attention in school instead of whining about it. She misspelled "school". FML

I agree, your life sucks 47 062

You deserved it 4 676

By Sadmom - 14/09/2016 02:15 - United States - Cherry Hill

Today, I found out that my son thinks it's acceptable to use words like "on fleek" in high school level essays. FML

I agree, your life sucks 10 958

You deserved it 1 434

By shaifox96 - 17/04/2015 03:34 - Canada - Saint Catharines

Today, I received a terrible grade for an essay I worked really hard on. I had two friends, one being an English major, check it over. However, apparently I "clearly didn't use spellcheck" on this essay just like the last one I submitted to her. FML

I agree, your life sucks 26 941

You deserved it 5 689

Hey! Teachers! Leave those kids alone!

By Anonymous - 24/09/2021 13:58

Today, while grading my kindergarteners' spelling tests, one kid spelled all the words wrong, including his name. FML

I agree, your life sucks 896

You deserved it 188

tj4234 35

Wednesday 8 February 2017 14:07

America has had a terrible education system for decades. It's not a new thing. If anything, it was improved under Obama.

stormy0307 16

Wednesday 8 February 2017 14:41

I had one that demanded you write (sic) behind every quote. You only use (sic) after a quote or word if they used improper grammar and it's letting the reader know that improper phrase is exactly what the person said.

Comments

brezzyanna 17

Thursday 9 February 2017 23:57

Im in first year University, so my high school experience wasn't long ago. I was always in advanced English, yet the grammar and pronunciation of most of the other students in my class was a disaster. We had ESL students in our advanced class! One essay I had to edit started off with "Shakespeare's been dead since time." The point is, students don't care about English anywhere, because they speak it well enough to get by, and they don't think its important.