I tutor an 11th grade student. She brought a take-home test for her health class or whatever it is called nowadays to the session. It was a writing assignment. She was required to advise, coincidentally, "Bill" about nutrition and the manner in which to go about reducing his weight from 280 pounds to 240.
Her teacher wrote the instructions and the description of the problem, along with a list of terms that he required her to incorporate into the story and to defining the terms so that "Bill" would understand.
In the problem, her teacher wrote, "Your to explain to Bill, who weighs 280 pounds and wants to get down to 240, about nutrition ...."
My health teacher in 10th grade was a retired professional football player. He played when professional football players had to supplement their incomes with other jobs. Also, he was about 5-11 and weighed about 170. He played defensive line. In an NFL championship game, he blocked a pass by the opposing quarterback, who was throwing from his own end zone, which was, in those days, a two-point safety. The Cleveland Rams won the championship by a score of 15 to 14, the safety being the difference. He was a stickler about grammar.
How did this teacher get out of college without knowing the difference between "your" and "you're?" I don't care if he is teaching a health class. He has a teaching certificate and a college degree.
English is a second language for my student. It's hard enough for her without some state-certified teacher dragging her down, but maybe that's all part of the dumbing down of America.
Posted by Bill at May 17, 2008 10:16 PMUgh ... that's one of my pet peeves too.
Posted by: tj at May 17, 2008 10:40 PMI get paid to write, but I make mistakes that look like that - the wrong versions of words - pretty often. I catch most of them. I type definitely when I mean definite, etc. There's a disconnect between thinking and typing and seeing. I type too fast. Proofing is vital for me.
Even if the teacher had written, "You are to explain to Bill ..." it would still be a bad sentence. "You are" is superfluous. The sentence is passive and effete.
Bill is overweight and wants to lose 40 pounds. Explain nutrition to Bill with this goal in mind.
So when did they become the Browns?
That jumped out of the page at me.
Now then, the problem really is do you criticise the teacher in front of the student?
Posted by: Anji at May 18, 2008 03:41 AM