Could do better, Mr Gove.

It's not often I read the Torygraph, having an eye to my blood pressure, but I wandered over to the website today, said something reasonable and found I was in a parallel universe occupied by bigots - which at least partly explains the passivity with which much of the Coalition's demolition derby on our services is being met. 


What drew me in was this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8148093/Education-pupils-will-lose-marks-for-poor-grammar-and-spelling.html.


The paper headlined: "

Education: pupils will lose marks for poor grammar and spelling

Pupils will be penalised in exams for poor spelling, punctuation and grammar under a sweeping overhaul of the education system."

Needless to say this prompted a torrent of Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells correspondence, lamenting that teachers cannot teach and that standards have slipped. 


Spelling, grammar, and punctuation are important for English, and are graded, and I (along with tens of thousands of others) teach them. Whether or not a student has a good grade in English enables an employer or university to make an accurate judgement about the student's ability to read, write, and speak. Why should students hampered in that area be also unable to achieve a top grade in Biology, or History?


The simple fact is, there are students out there who have non-verbal CATS of 120+ and verbal CATS of 80-ish. They are bright - very bright - and able to talk. They can't spell. Big deal: I can't read music. Does it block success in every area? It so happens that we live currently in an age where spelling is more on view than ever, because more of us type and write every day than ever before, and manufacturing and skilled manual work was abolished by a powerful combo of Mrs T and the Chinese. In the past, these people found jobs; they still can, and the future for them is brighter than ever. 


Spell check will help many, although a few Luddites insist that it is somehow bad for us all; I assume that they also eschew penicillin, and write using a quill pen or a shark's tooth on a clay tablet.  In a few years we will all be using speech-to-text anyway, and spelling will be as relevant as the ability to write in Latin. Oh, wait. I expect Mr Gove and some of his fans think that we should all be judged on that, too.


If we ignore a large cohort of the brightest students because they cannot spell, we will end up with a less able workforce. That can't be a good thing. To those who say you cannot be bright and yet unable to spell (in the words of one Telegraph reader, "dyslexia is an excuse for the stupid and lazy") I would refer you to Winston Churchill and Richard Branson, two prominently successful dyslexics who would have suffered under the system proposed. 


The English curriculum is far from perfect. Maybe what is needed, though, is to drop the obsession that developed over the last 20 years with a metalanguage - what is the point in a 14 year old evaluating how effective Shakespeare's writing is, and analysing how he achieved the effects that he did? We all know Shakespeare is great - but if you want to put people off it, make them write an essay about the techniques that are used to build tension in Act 3 scene 1 of Romeo and Juliet. I have probably been the instrument through which the government has convinced hundreds of young people that Shakespeare is dull. 

The curriculum is cluttered with pointless exercises, asking students to write magazine articles and speeches, when it should focus on the things that really matter: speaking clearly and well, taking turns, writing, with the aid of a computer with spell check, a good letter applying for a job, and most important of all, reading and enjoying stories, and writing for your own pleasure.

The debate would be a lot easier and better informed had the journalism in the original piece been more accurate and less "spun". The fact is, to get a C in English at GCSE, you have to be able to punctuate accurately (though not with flair: colons are for the higher grades); and you have to be able to spell most common words accurately. That's always been the case. What changed in 2003 is that there were no longer 5% of the marks reserved for spelling and punctuation in all other exams. However, it is still the case that for, say, History, around 5% of the marks are available for "Quality of Written Communication". This is a minute change. 

As usual with politicians, everyone's an expert in education because everyone's been to school. As usual, there is a brave-sounding policy that is flung to the twitterati, promising a brave new world in the sunlit uplands where all children will be the happy Jennings and Darbyshire of the 1950's, learning Latin, buying tuck, and carrying a leather satchel. And as usual, as then, as now, and as in the future, as usual, the change is more apparent than real.