The Computer Age/Versus The Teacher

With the computer age there has been a cry out for less teachers and more computer generated classes. But one can not help but be curious about how that will work? Today I graded a journal that stated, "som wales swim to Australa." The girl who wrote this entry is considered GATE and has the most amazing mind, yet when it comes to spelling she can not seem to transfer any words we have on the test to her journal. "Some" was a spelling word fom last week's spelling list. Another amazingly smart student wrote that "becase the whalle can use its tal, it can migrat to southen California." "Because" was a word from the week before's list. It makes me curious when we use these words in sentences, rainbow spell them, rearrange them on paper, why they don't seem to work their way into the writing process? Spelling is not a sign of intelligence, I know. Einstein was a terrible speller. So, when should it happen? If we worry so much about spelling in the early stages of writing, then the student is fearful of putting anything down, because it might be spelled incorrectly. But, then if it is never accurate, the mind has to be retrained and retrained before it has mastered an incorrect spelling. So, the circle continues. Maybe, when the individual tires of the word being rewritten, they will tire of their familiar spelling and capture the correct spelling. A teacher can only hope the light will come on in their class and "som" will become "some" and "becase" will become "because". Then we will will have to start working on "tale" to become "tail" and "wale" to become "whale". In a way, it is a little dose of job security. If a student misspells, and they need a teacher to find it, (spell check does not always!) then we have a reason to show up each day and students have a reason to need us. Computer classes do not care if a student misspells, they only mark it, and move on. The human teacher will work tirelessly to find the magic moment when all of the words come together. The human teacher will sit and smile at the victory when a journal entry reads, "The gray whale migrates from China to the Southern California coast each year. Then they will write the appropriate remarks and run to the student with a "I knew you could do it!" The human teacher will live for that victorious moment and show up the next day waiting for more magic to happen. Spelling will continue to baffle all of us, but the teacher will always bring the human aspect to education while computers can not.