What Fires You Up?

12/03/2003

 

The Written Word Rant

Now hear this all folks under 30: the computer and word processing do not cover all life's requirements towards communication. True! There are times when you must communicate in your own handwriting. Really! Not kiddin' round here. I am working in a data prep center of a large, national firm that processes applications and tests for students required for many programs, grants, scholarships, and college admission. It is astonishing how few young people can correctly complete their application forms, merely considering the basics! As in: when you must fill in a text field with your own name, it helps that anyone reading the form can actually decipher your quirky lettering to determine your name. No shit Sherlock, so many students do not even take the time to neatly fill in their own name.

Moving along: when a name is entered in a text field and then one is to fill in the little oval/round dots to be scanned, it helps to make sure you are filling in the correct dots that match your printed letter. One poor gal ended up on the official reports as "This" since she did not fill out enough of the scanning dots to match her real name. Sad to say, if a student or applicant can't fill out the form properly, how much expectation is there that the test results will be favorable?

Now, before younger people take too much offence, I'd like to point out that the same problems seem to apply to their teachers and advisors who transmit such standardized tests and forms! If a school invests a great deal of time in having 300 students take a test, then the teacher that sends off those tests to be scored should take the time to properly fill out their administrator forms. Apparently, this is too much work for some teachers - and minutes if not hours of time are spent in the scoring firm and data preparation departments trying to figure out what school, what class, etc. has sent in tests to be scored. I wonder how students can be expected to learn how to neatly prepare their own work when their teachers are not up to the task.

Not talking about anything strenuous here as to the requirements. If a school code is required, and the form clearly shows that this must be written in, and the preparation materials clearly detail the information, then why do so many teachers have problems with copying the data into the forms? If I were a student or parent of a student that had their school's tests delayed due such simple errors, I would be outraged. Oh yeah - I am a taxpayer and a citizen, and I AM OUTRAGED that so many people are becoming so careless with documents that affect so many lives! Such carelessness actually costs MONEY, so this is not just idle crabbing from a geezer.

Earlier this year I was an essay grader for students applying for prestigious graduate school admission. Sorry to say, if an essay is about a general topic such as business, well wouldn't one expect that the writers spell THAT WORD correctly in their essays? Blew me away to find out that about 1/4 of the essays from upperclass college students had so many "creative" ways of spelling just that word.

When people form an impression of others, it is often in the context of their appearance or demeanor. When the only thing that represents a person is their own handwriting, it is a woeful situation for so many. For the record, I wonder often if students that are generally pretty bright see that there may be a concern when it is so hard to read anything they write? If students intend to be lawyers or doctors, I'd hope that by the age of 20 - 25 they would be able to communicate with decent handwriting, grammar, and if possible, complete sentences. Wait - I digress. The rant today is just about the basics of handwriting / printing out by hand some communication. Say, when I get back to teaching in the public schools, I don't care what grade level I am teaching - there will be a mandatory one week spent in all classes with attention to detail and written communication.

Rant for today - done! "Rotten" kids can't rite 2 good - maybe it's a lost art? Signing off now, your curmudgeonly cobalt.

BJ 12/03/2003 05:47:00 PM

11/30/2003

 

A School Day Off for HUNTING?????

Just heard from my neice in Pennsylvania that her Thanksgiving school holiday is extended one more day as Monday is the start of the hunting season in her area. What a reason to cancel school! She also tells me that her "winter break" (read Christmas break if you are not PC) is having the students return on Friday after Christmas because they lost a school day due to the effects of Hurricane Isabel in October. Does this all make sense to you? What a world!

BJ 11/30/2003 09:57:00 AM