Bad Teachers

Some of you may or may not know this, but, I have a job in the arts, and I love my particular field, but I am finding that my field does not really love me. To wit, a few years post-grad school and no great dream job, not even a job I love, or maybe kind of like, just a crap job in my field. So, not one to wallow (HA!), I am thinking about retraining in something a bit more practical and job friendly. Don't get me wrong all of you readers in the arts, the arts are fabulous, and if you can get a job, hold onto it for dear life, it is just I am in a niche section of arts, and I fear there are just not nearly enough jobs or funding to support all of us training in our niche.

So, back to retraining--I am taking classes at a community college, which makes me most likely the oldest person in history to ever attend classes at a community college. I know. I feel like a grandmother most of the time, but, I MOST feel like a grandmother when I have to work in group projects. In one of my groups, one of the members submitted her portion of our paper entirely in text speak. I am not kidding. First person, text speak, LOLs included, all the way. I quickly offered to "edit" the entire group project and made something out of this girl's mess, but it left me wondering....how did this girl get through high school? Or even middle school?

If I remember correctly, back in the dark ages, we had to diagram sentences in 6th grade, maybe 7th, and we were NEVER allowed to use colloquialisms in our writing in high school. It had to be professional, formal speech all the way if it was going to be submitted. So where in the [too many years] since I graduated high school did things change? I know there are good teachers out there, because I am related to some of them (!), but are there so many bad teachers out there that they just don't care to help these students in life? What about her previous college professors who let her submit work of that quality? I'm putting bad teachers on notice (to take a page from Stephen Colbert), because even if text-speak is becoming horribly ubiquitous, it is never acceptable for business correspondence or resumes and isn't a teacher's job in life to prepare their students for living life in the real world? Whatever happened to that notion?