The Demise of Education in America - Instant TXT Messaging:

The New York Times has an article called Nu Shortcuts in School R 2 Much 4 Teachers. The article details how instant messaging programs have not only become pervasive in our daily lives in the internet age, but are entering the lexicon of high school student’s term papers.

For instance:

Deborah Bova, who teaches eighth-grade English at Raymond Park Middle School in Indianapolis, thought her eyesight was failing several years ago when she saw the sentence “B4 we perform, ppl have 2 practice” on a student assignment.

“I thought, `My God, what is this?’ ” Ms. Bova said. “Have they lost their minds?”

The student was summoned to the board to translate the sentence into standard English: “Before we perform, people have to practice.” She realized that the students thought she was out of touch. “It was like `Get with it, Bova,’ ” she said.

One may say that teachers need to catch up with the times, but this is a case where students need to realize what is expected of them. Teachers are expected to educate their students, not to unteach what their students learn on the internet. If today’s students think that they will be able to earn merely good grades while turning in homework assignments they will learn a cold stark reality when they get to college or enter the real world. I commend teachers who try to work with their students when attempting to teach the difference between correct and incorrect grammar and writing styles, but instant messaging shorthand just doesn’t cut it.

This quote, from a teacher, shows the heart of the problem, that students don’t realize the difference between what is acceptable in school/work/life and what is acceptable when conversing with their friends!

They were astonished when I began to point these things out to them,” said Henry Assetto, a social studies teacher at Twin Valley High School in Elverson, Pa. “Because I am a history teacher, they did not think a history teacher would be checking up on their grammar or their spelling,” said Mr. Assetto, who has been teaching for 34 years.

and, from a student

But Montana Hodgen, 16, another Montclair student, said she was so accustomed to instant-messaging abbreviations that she often read right past them. She proofread a paper last year only to get it returned with the messaging abbreviations circled in red.

“I was so used to reading what my friends wrote to me on Instant Messenger that I didn’t even realize that there was something wrong,” she said. She said her ability to separate formal and informal English declined the more she used instant messages. “Three years ago, if I had seen that, I would have been `What is that?’ “

C ya l8tr g8tr, I’m a l33t hax0r!
(Translation: See you later alligator, I’m an elite hacker!)