Monday, October 6, 2008

A Pet Peeve

This post is surely going to be unpopular with some people, but since it's MY blog and MY thoughts, I'm going to roll with it.

There are about 10 blogs that I check pretty often, several times a week.

There are about 15 or so other blogs that I may check about once every couple of weeks.

I've noticed something that really irks me. Several of these blogs belong to people who happen to home school their children. In general, I have nothing against homeschooling. I know it's come a LONG way in the last ten years or so. There are many networks out there for homeschooling parents and I think many of these people really try to do their best.

However...I never cease to be amazed at how some of these homeschooling parents (mostly moms) use incorrect grammar or homophones. The one that irks me the most is your and you're. For crying out loud, learn the difference between the two!!

We teach our students skills that we, ourselves, are expected to use anytime we write anything or speak. All educators, whether they be in a school or in a home should constantly be setting an example for our students. Whether it be in an email or in a blog, we should be utilizing the grammar, spelling, and writing rules that we are teaching.

How in the world can you expect to do such a fabulous job teaching your children if you yourself don't know the difference between two (or three) homophones?!?! Then you send your children out into the world, and possibly college, with a severe lack of basic language/grammar/spelling skills. These are the kinds of things that give homeschooling parents a bad name.

If you're going to home school, please PLEASE PLEASE make sure you know what you're doing!
Don't get me wrong...I admire what you're doing, and the fact that you are willing to undertake such a huge responsibility, but in my mind, you will be held to the same standards as every teacher in a school building.

Okay, I'm off my soapbox now.

Go ahead and flame away if you feel the need.

5 comments:

Leeann said...

No flame coming from me!
The thing that gets me is spelling errors. If there are several in a book that I'm reading, it will ruin the book for me!

Funny thing though: spelling really does seem to be somewhat innate. It can be learned, obviously, but my son (and I) are natural spellers. My husband and daughter can't spell for crap. The third has yet to be pigeonholed because he is still learning to read.

Okay, so question for you:
My son is Chris.
To show the possessive ie: we are going to the house of Chris,
would I say
We are going to Chris' house
or
We are going to Chris's house.

Help!

Leeann

HereWeGoAJen said...

I totally agree. I think people should try their best to use correct grammar and spelling all the time, no matter what they are doing.

PERBS said...

hehehe their goes the neighborhood! hehehehe I know that is wrong!

I sometimes type it wrong when blogging and try to correct it when I notice my mistake. Usually, mine are typos and not spelling errors tho.

Catching up -- posted a comment below also.

Susan/SC said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
angie {the arthur clan} said...

I feel your pain on this one ~ I've noticed that all over the place. It's usually easy to tell if it was a typo (a one time mistake) as compared to just not knowing that they should be spelled different ways (and the error occurs over and over again on their blog.)

I get mad at myself because I usually type up my post entries during the middle of the night. When I wake up in the morning I'll log on to read over my post and always cringe whenever I see an error. I drive myself crazy with it. :) I do always go back and fix them though!