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Comment by jay_kyburz | Hacker News Reader

This was pretty clear when our kids were all sent home during Covid. We pushed very far ahead using Khan academy. Keeping it simple with basic math, reading, and writing.

About halfway through Covid schools started sending home this work they wanted the kids to do. 80% was a waist of time.

I never really thought about it till then, but primary school is basically babysitting where they happen to do some learning as well.

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You know, I overlook a lot of grammatical errors, and I usually don't like to be that guy, but when it's an "oh look how smart I am" type post I can't help myself. It should be waste of time, not waist.

This is a jerk response. They were not bragging about being smart.

Indeed it is a jerk response.

They were bragging that primary school is mostly busy work while ironically making a primary school mistake.

I'm with you. It's like the most ironic setup possible for an error in grammar. I was glad to see your response.

Ironically, the error was in spelling, not grammar.

If you’re going to be pedantic be correct. That was a spelling error, not one of grammar.

Eh,the word wasn't misspelled, it was the wrong word.

How is it ironic? I'm assuming that they themselves were brought up in public school and this mistake just makes their point stronger.

If OP's homeschooled kids were the ones denigrating public school while making spelling/grammatical errors then it'd be ironic.

OP showed he isn't qualified to judge.

Auto-correct will make even the most well written posters appear to have room temperature IQ.

For real, true

Can't wait for sentence level autocorrect to appear. Because doing it at word level is not enough.

I mean, ok, swipe typing has been a great improvement. But depending on the keyboard it manages to do stupid crap even at word level (like suggesting a 8 letter word if you just "typed" 3 letters)

1. It could easily be auto correct

2. A lot of brilliant people much smarter than you and me have trouble with spelling. It doesn't take away from their ability in other areas.

3. Hate to be that guy :) but it's not a grammatical error

1. Auto-correct can be corrected. 2. Check your worm before sending?

> worm

I assume it was "work" and that‘s the joke :p

I am curious if there is a name for this situation where someone corrects others’ grammar and then make a grammar mistake themselves?

yes. it’s Muphry’s Law

Murphy's Law covers it in a way, but I was thinking of something more specific to this exact case.

I think I will start calling it Pontificator's Law. Let's see if it sticks.

haha, I'm not offended, and I _am_ a terrible speller. I didn't mean to sound super smart, I just parked the kids in front of Khan academy and did some reading with them.

I was trying to point out actually how simple it was to be better that what the schools were sending home.

And I don't really disagree with you. I think Covid proved that childcare is indeed a major component of school. I doubt that a public school or all but the most expensive private schools have much ability to tailor education to the individual needs of children.

I would also like to add that I have a lot of respect for my children's teachers. Having such a wide variety of skills and talents in a class of 9 and 10 year olds must be very challenging.

Then I will have to be the annoying person who points out that English is not a prescriptive language and that the more we push for incorrect spelling the more correct it will be.

Anyway English is an ugly hack of a language, the more we mispell it, the better chance we have to get it fixed to something closer to Esperanto.

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