Confession: I'm an English Teacher Who Can't Spell

An English teacher scoring 73% on a spelling test??  Shocking, appalling, horrifying!

My kids know better than to ask me how to spell anything.  Occasionally, one of them will forget and ask, "Miss, how do you spell persuasion?"  Before I can answer, someone else will chime in with something along the lines of, "Why are you asking her? She can't spell." I should be insulted (because I do know how to spell persuasion), but most of the time, they're right.  I can't spell.

I could blame the "old fashion" spelling tests of my childhood or in invention of Spell Check, but I think the reality of it is that some people have it and some don't.  I don't.

One of the most embarrassing moments of elementary school was the Second Grade Spelling Bee.  We lined up in alphabetical order so that put me about about half way back.  I listened to the words my friends were getting. I was getting excited because they were simple and I just knew I would get mine right.

After what seemed like forever, it was my turn.  My teacher, Ms. Karnes, said, "Molly, your word is 'sat'."

Yes! I know this! I thought as I said, "S-E-T." 


"No, it's S-A-T.  You can sit down."

I was mortified.  My little 8-year-old life was over.  I knew that it was A, so why did I say E?

To this day, a lifetime later, this thought still haunts me.  I'm sure I was just speaking faster than I was thinking (something that has gotten me in trouble many times in the years since, but that's a whole different blog!). I have been known to make thoughtless, careless mistakes when it came to math problems because I was thinking about the answer instead of the steps to solving it.  I can only think that is what happened here.  But it doesn't change the fact that even now, spelling is one of the things in life that I have to work at getting right.

Already in writing this, I have had to check a few words:
       Appalling - just a or au - like 'Paul'?
       Embarrassing - two S's, two R's or both?
       Alphabetical -  alph-e-betical or alph-a-betical?
       Receiving - ie or ei? Oh, yeah: "I before E except after C"...but what are the exceptions to that rule?

This caused a bit of a predicament (per or pre?) when it came to writing on the white board at school. I used to avoid tricky because I thought misspelling a word in front of my class was the worst thing I could do.  If I did have to write a word I wasn't sure of, I prayed that the students wouldn't notice.

A few years ago, I shared this fear with a co-teacher who was in my room for one period a day.  She told me something that changed the way I looked at this challenge (challange? challenge?).  She said that seeing a "successful (one C or two?) grown up" who still struggles with this is good for them, especially if they see me work to overcome it.  They have struggles of their own and look at them as an excuse to not do their best.  Seeing me problem solve shows them not to let a setback keep them from achieving  (acheiving? achieving?) all they can.

Now, when I write a word on the board that I most likely misspelled, I ask, "Did I spell that correctly?" Most of the time the answer is no and someone corrects me.  Sometimes they debate of whether it's correct or not and end up looking it up.  (I love when that happens!)

Occasionally, I do get the, "It's so weird (again with that ie or ei?) that you teach English but can't spell." My response is always, "We all have things that are hard for us, we just need to work at them." So true!

Why 'Counting the Pages of a Dictionary?'

I teach middles schoolers, and anyone who has spent any time around them knows that the oddest adages come out of their mouths.  One day during our silent independent reading time (we call it SIR), I looked up from a weekly conference with a group of students to see a child flipping through the dictionary.  Normally, I would have been thrilled that this particular child had a book at all, but he was not staying on one page long enough to take in anything...even from a dictionary.  I asked this kid what he was doing and without pause he looked up at me and said, as if it were totally logical, "I'm counting the pages of this dictionary."  He then looked down and resumed his task.  I, being confused by this, asked him why.  His response was, "The last page is 1636, and I don't believe it."

This got me thinking (after I told him that there were more productive things to do with his time – with which he didn't agree, of course). Why did he question the page numbers?  That would never occur to me! But on the flip side, why should be believe that there are 1636 pages in the dictionary?

This kid needed proof - something he could trust, which in this case was counting out all 1636 pages on his own.  If he was this distrusting of a published book, why should be believe anything I, or any other teacher/administrator/adult whom he doesn’t know, tells him? What would make him trust what I say? The obvious answer is relationship - get to know your students.  We hear that every year in during August staff development.  While I am totally on board with that, I think that for some kids it goes deeper.  Not only does there need to be a relationship, but kids need to be met at their level, on their terms and in their time.  I wish I had an answer for how to accomplish this, but I don't.  If I did, I'd put in a book not on a blog. This is just my way of processing the discoveries and sharing the good with the ugly.  There will definitely be both! Enjoy!