Today the UK government issued guidance that British schools should no longer teach children the spelling rule, “i before e except after c”. It was one of the main news headlines all morning.
Haven’t they got anything better to think about, like crashing economies worldwide, wars in Iraq and Afganistan, unrest in Iran, terrorism in Pakistan, nukes in North Korea and disease and starvation in Zimbabwe (to name a few, if they are feeling bored and out on a limb)?
Apparently not. They have other things on their mind. The guidance says:
The i before e rule is not worth teaching. It applies only to words in which the ie or ei stands for a clear ee sound. Unless this is known, words such as sufficient and veil look like exceptions. There are so few words where the ei spelling for the ee sounds follows the letter c that it is easier to learn the specific words.
According to the BBC, the directive, issued to 13,000 primary schools recommends:
other ways to teach pupils spelling, like studying television listings for compound words, changing the tense of a poem to practise irregular verbs and learning about homophones through jokes such as ‘How many socks in a pair? None — because you eat a pear’
Never mind the suggestion that our kids should learn spelling from television listings, could someone please explain the homophone joke?
Oh good gawd…
Comment by Pseudo — June 20, 2009 @ 11:05 pm
Explain the homophone joke? It’s bad.
In a way, it’s kind of nice to know other countries are dumbing down the educational system in order to meet the lowest common denominator.
In a way.
Comment by Jan — June 21, 2009 @ 6:56 am
Well if it’s “easier to learn the specific words,” you turkeys, why don’t you tell us what they are? I can think of seize and neither. And I think there are some from Scottish. Anyone’s tax bucks paying for this fatuity is a little hard to bear.
We were taught the rule by Mrs Smith, ninth grade, as: “When the digraphs ie and ei are pronounced long e, i comes before e except after c with certain exceptions.” I would think that would take care of any contingency.
“siege” and “seize” were the two words I spelled wrong in Eighth Grade spelling test so I came in second and horrible buck-toothed brainiac Inez came in first. I’m not sure I’m over it yet.
Comment by T P — June 29, 2009 @ 2:07 pm