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Who said anything about intelligence? Spelling is a critical component of effective written communication.


That also means students using spellcheck is not necessarily a problem, so long as they can communicate effectively in writing.


Spellchecking isn’t always available.

I used to work in a job that involved access to severely restricted information.

We weren’t allowed to use conventional computer. No access to spellcheckers.

And we were rigorously assesses for spelling, because our reports had a very wide audience.

Knowing how to write well without software support is still a skill required on our world.


Education has many goals and one of them is to teach them spelling. The fact that fourth grade homework is spelled correctly does not matter at all - the goal is not to produce correctly spelled homework.


Of they don't have to memorize random spellings it could free up mental resources for other things.

Regardless, why be stuck in the past with things like handwriting or spelling or cursive?


If you're a programmer, does your editor perform spellcheck for you? Mine certainly doesn't.

It's utterly bizarre to me that people in this thread are seriously suggesting that spelling is an obsolete skill.


You don't think it would be embarrassing to be standing at a whiteboard at work and be unable to spell basic words?


It won't be embarrassing if no one else in the room can spell better than you. (I once had a Chinese professor forget how to write a certain character while writing on the blackboard. He just laughed it off.)

It's also not clear to me that spellcheck will lead to people forgetting how to spell, since it's all about notifying you of spelling mistakes.


So we should study things so we don't get embarrassed? Moving on are you embarrassed because you don't know how to swordfight or any other outdated skills?


That's begging the question. It's not an outdated skill if there are situations you need it! If I couldn't spell the things I were writing on the board in tutorials, it would quite reasonably look like I have no idea what I'm doing. Not a great look.


I think in the entirety of my 16 years as a student, I probably wrote less than 100 words total on blackboards or whiteboards. There weren't computers or ipads in those classrooms either.

Whiteboards are something I use more often at work these days, but not really when I was in school.




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