Looks like the American spelling bee is heading to the UK in the form (somewhat) of the BBC’s new show Hard Spell: “Britain’s best young speller step forward because SPELLING JUST GOT COMPELLING.” (emphasis mine). Good grief.
To be hosted by Eamonn Holmes, the executive producer said “This will be like Pop Idol, but with spelling. We want it to be fashionable to spell well.”
Fashionable? Is that what we are reducing basic education to? FASHION?!
I WAS going to rant about this. With teachers for parents I guess it strikes a nerve, and I could easily rattle off an essay length post about declining standards foisted by pencil pushing government officials, and how I think a return to stricter schooling is for the benefit of society… and so on.
But I won’t. It’s too early in the day and it wouldn’t allow me to post this lovely quote taken from this article about the upcoming show:
Last year, Michelle Plummer, a mother of three from Merthyr Tydfil, had David Beckham’s name tattooed in inch-and-a-half letters on her back. When she got home, she found it read BECKAM. “I went berserk,” she said. “I feel I’ve been scarred for life.”
Poetic justice?
