Isn’t it awesome when teachers encourage their students to take part in our great democracy? When I was a kid that meant sending a letter to the president and hoping to get a form letter back. In fact, my brother did get a letter and a picture signed by Jimmy Carter himself. For some reason, Mr. Carter didn’t respond to my letter. Maybe the problem was my punctuation.
photo by flickr user danperry.com
In response to deep budget cuts, an Arizona high school teacher recently encouraged her students send emails to elected officials. One student got a response that might scar her worse than never hearing back from President Carter scarred me (and it scarred me pretty badly).
According to KTVU.com, the student’s email to State Sen. Linda Gray, R-Phoenix, was eight lines long, with no punctuation and many spelling and grammar errors.
Here’s Gray’s response:
“By your poorly written e-mail, your example tells me that all the money we have spent on your education shows a lack of learning on your part.”
“My daughter is a sixth grade teacher and she would be embarrassed if a student in her classroom sent such an email.”
“Why didn’t you take to time to write an e-mail with the proper punctuation?”
photo by flickr user foxtongue
Geez, why not call her a few names, pull down her pants, and knock over her lunch tray, Senator Gray? And by the way, interesting sentence structure there. Where exactly did YOU go to school?
Turns out the girl who wrote the email is not a native English speaker and is in a special reading program for students who are struggling. I’m sure this helped her self esteem.
Nice use of email Senator.
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Does the Senator kick puppies in her spare time too? This is horrible.