Disclosure: I am a bit of a grammarian. I am much more interested in English language arts than math. Oh, and I'm not perfect, either. I realize everyone has strengths and weaknesses, too.
Now that I've said all of the above, I'm going to pick on home schooling parents a little. I will reiterate that I am aware of strengths and weaknesses and that "math" people are not likely to worry so much about the things that make my skin crawl. That is fine with me as long as a) they have editors before they publish articles and b) they are not home schooling their children. My issue with home schoolers who cannot write using proper terms and spelling is that I find it inexcusable with the advent of spellchecks that are even available for e-mail! How do you send an email off with little red lines under words? With that analytical and mathematical mind, the red lines should be glaring off the page for you.
I always have to laugh and cringe at once when there are emails on the listservs to which I belong wherein people have hassles with a school in a town when they address their letters to the "superintendant" and my favorite was the one who wrote about issues with the "superattendent" (superintendent). There are other words that bug me, too: insure and ensure. Mostly, people don't "insure" anything about their kids other than provide health insurance for them. While a child-made necklace might complement your wardrobe, it is a compliment a stranger might give you when viewing the necklace. (I think of this as the fact that a compliment is nice and that nice and compliment both have "i" in them. I think of complement, or an addition, as making something complete, and both have "e" in them.) As for insure/ensure, well, insure is "in case" something happens and ensure might be equatable to enveloping something to ensure its safety/care. With regard to superintendent, stick with something like it has an "e" for education not an "a" or just use the spellchecker!
Again, I realize that oftentimes emails are typed at speed and sent quickly with little forethought. It's not like I haven't messed up and made a typo. And, I'm not only picking on parents here, as I've gotten more than one syllabus from my daughter's public school teachers with truly egregious errors and utterly maddening variations of fonts, underlines and bold lettering used to describe a teacher's demand for a single font and instructing students to write better rather than rely on italics or underlining. Considering that at the high school level this is the only communication from or representation of a teacher to parents, it is even more frustrating.
What I'm saying herein is that people who home school should not be surprised to receive requests for more information or inquiries into qualifications and that kind of thing when it is apparent to the person reading their letter of intention to home school that the parent is either careless with typos or lacks the ability to spell or construct coherent sentences. Both of these things are not what education systems and Departments of Education want to see in anyone providing education to the youth of our nation. Take the time to edit. Ask a friend to read your letter. Click "spell/grammar check" and look up words that are underlined in red before you print and mail your letter to the school system.
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