NE1 there?
November 11th, 2006
New Zealand’s top education authority announced they will allow “text-speak” in national examinations. That should capture attention by itself, but the fallout in the blogosphere is even more deserving.
This is a bad idea on many fronts. I could give you my reasons why, but I’ll just let those who have spoken receive more credit. This comment, by Kenno, in response to the post by Engadget, summarizes the kiwi point-of-view:
Ye Gods, they already speak a lower form of English in NZ, this will drive the place back into the dark ages of literacy. NZ is hell bend on not putting the little darlings under any stress or putting any kind of challenge in front of them where one person might exceed another — it’s becoming Walden II down here and we will suffer for it.
There were two Canadian comments to the same AP report from the Globe and Mail that were particularly interesting. The first from S Lucht:
What a great idea! Just like Ebonics was a great idea.
The second, as direct entry, from GB:
perfect…train the youth for their future years of using those obnoxious Blackberry phones…the english language has gone to hell in a handbasket anyways…no surprise here…and i am sure the ever popular lazy profs are all for this…the less they have to read, the better….having gone to university, i remember my great profs…arriving to class in track suits, incoherently rambling for 2hrs, drinking an alcohol laced coffee and then giving us a project to work on… just a matter of time before this is adopted in Canada..
Looks like GB shouldn’t be criticizing incorrect English publicly. Notwithstanding, if students haven’t discovered there is a difference between formal writing and peer communication, there’s a bigger issue at hand. And I’m going to vouch for the second: there has been a great breakdown in contemporary education distinguishing that difference. Is it teacher laziness, as some have claimed? I don’t think the buck stops there. As a society, we have become so infatuated with the notion of time, that making effort to do something right in the first place is now “inefficient.”
