Recently I filled out one of those time-sucking Facebook "all about me" surveys. Number nineteen says:
I'm a horrible speller, but I demand people to use correct English and grammar (yes, even on Facebook). It's a hazard of the job, I guess.
I just spent the last two weeks teaching my AP Composition students that when they write "you" in a paper it really means me, and I'm not their intended audience. I've spent endless hours circling all of the pronoun issues and repeating in class that if a person writes, "one can not understand", he/she has to write "his/her" instead of "their" when he/she finishes the sentence. Now I believe they all think that I'm being psycho English teacher about this issue, but I really do believe it does matter. However, when I wrote number nineteen on that Facebook survey today, I realized I'm a hypocrite.
I readily admitted that I'm a horrible speller, but I demand others to be perfect. How is that fair? It's not. It made think this morning about how it is so much easier for us as people to be editors in life, than our own writers. It's easier for me to point out someone else's errors/faults, than for me to really acknowledge or accept my own. Or in my case, I acknowledge my own fault, but don't cut other people slack if they are bad spellers or if they didn't learn the correct way to write out numbers.
It also made me think about my two students this week who were debating whether perfection exists. One student said, "If we know perfection can't really exist, why do people say 'practice makes perfect' and why do people strive for perfection?".
I guess this makes sense then about my request for people to use correct grammar: If I can't be perfect (and I know I can't), than I demand someone else try to be.
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