Hello, friends.
This was a week where things happened. What things? Nothing of consequence to you, friends. Just a long, regular week of teaching in a vocational-technical high school in the 21st century where everything has gone completely bugfuck. I may write a little about it below.
Anyway, let’s get into things.
Welcome to the 89th installment of Gauthic Times, the newsletter about my writing, my life, and the lack of writing skills I see.
Becoming a paid-Patron on my Patreon would help me write even more. On Patreon, I write about things in more detail than I do in the newsletter or on my website and include the actual names of my works-in-progress and not just codenames. The lowest tier for Patreon is $1 but at $5/month, we’re looking at some serious help.
If every subscriber or reader of this newsletter, or every social media follower I have became a Patron at even just the $1 tier, I could write more and pay my bills better. The same would happen if they bought copies of my books.
You can also buy me a coffee through Ko-Fi.
Grab Echoes on the Pond if you haven’t already. If you have bought it already, books make great gifts! And if you’ve read Echoes on the Pond, please consider reviewing on Amazon or Goodreads, and wherever else books are sold and reviewed.
You can also get my collection Catalysts or my novellas Alice on the Shelf and Shadowed.
Anyway, let’s do this!
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I’m 114 pages into editing Project: Amusement Park and still squarely in the 1985 section. I remember as I wrote the first draft, I’d spend time editing the stuff I wrote during the prior day’s session before writing the new stuff. Usually, I’ve done this in a quick way with the intention of getting through it fast to begin composition. For Project: Amusement Park, I tackled these edits a little more thoroughly, so my first draft was a little more like a second draft.
This is something I kind of just remembered as I worried about why I’m not running through the book with more ink. Why aren’t I crossing more stuff out? Why aren’t I doing more in terms of editing?! Am I failing?!?!
Well, I probably am, but not in that way. There’s still lots of edits happening and lots of cuts. I suspect as I go further into the book, there’ll be even more. The thing that’s really surprising me, though, is how much I’m enjoying it. That makes me happy. It would’ve sucked for me to have spent over a year writing the damn thing only to hate it.
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This past week was spent reading and editing student writing. I read multiple scripts written by high school sophomores and blog posts written by high school seniors. Here is my feeling: school is failing them.
Spelling, punctuation, and grammar are beyond most of them. The ability to follow simple directions in terms of formatting–even with samples provided–are too difficult to accomplish. I’ve been teaching seventeen years and the last few years have been horrifying. Yes, we have some amazing writers. But the majority now do not know that you do not spell you as u.
Now, grumpy old people (he says, looking in the mirror) will blame texting and social media, and that’s partly true. The simplification of the language through social media makes it easy for young people to think gonna is the appropriate way to write going to. and Don’t get me started on How they capitalize Words.. or punctuate sentences
If my last two lines made you cringe, welcome to my world. In. Almost. Every. Piece. Of. Writing. I. See.
Who is to blame for this?
Well…we are. As a society. We have pushed the idea that students will learn spelling and grammar through osmosis, by reading a lot, and while that can be true, it’s not entirely. I’ve had students who were avid readers. Students who I’ve had to tell to please put their book down and get back to work (do you know how that hurts?) many times cannot transfer that love of the written word to actually write words.
When my 11-year-old went back to public school, we’d hoped that her spelling would be addressed. She’s an avid reader and, when she wants to, can be a terrific writer. Except for her spelling. When we were homeschooling, Pamela and I both tried tricks to help her. We spent hundreds of dollars on classes to help her. It didn’t seem to stick. When she returned to elementary school (a place where elementary concepts like spelling should be taught), we were informed that she would absolutely learn to spell.
Like many other things, her fifth grade teacher fell short.
Are the schools the only ones to blame?
Fuck no, I already told you. We are. We allowed bullshit education reform like No Child Left Behind to force public schools to have to spend millions of dollars on tests so that our kids’ weekly spelling tests have words like onomatopoeia (which our daughter’s fifth grade teacher illustrated with an image that she found online that included the acronym WTF). Who uses the term onomatopoeia? Almost ever? And who knows how to spell that shit off the top of their heads? I needed spell check to correct me.
Ah, says some of you! Spell check. That’s when kids stopped learning to spell! Except…no. As a writer (which I guess I don’t have to say because if you’re reading this you know I’m a writer) I use spell check all the time and still know how to spell. There will always be words that will escape us. Diahrrea is one for me. Do you see? That’s misspelled. Diarrhea. I got it that second time! No need for spell check! Except, most of the time, I do need it. As someone who suffers from Crohn’s Disease, that is a word I have to write on the fly on medical stuff. There are other, more common words, I have trouble with, too. They come up on the fly. It happens. Spell check helps. It’s a tool.
And it’s a tool most of the kids do not use. That’s right. They ignore the red and blue (for grammar) squiggly lines. Why? Because teachers have warned them that the squiggly lines are not always correct. What the students don’t hear (from me) or aren’t told (by others, I assume) is that you should only ignore them once you learn how to write.
Here’s the thing, the kids aren’t being taught how to write or spell because education reform is a hoax to make it look like things are happening. The awards and incentives tend to go to the highest performing schools, which are rarely schools that need them, and penalize underperforming schools, which are the ones that need them. It’s almost as though the system is trying to keep down lower-class and lower-middle-class and, yes, even middle-class people in order to keep them working bad jobs and not allowing upward mobility.
I’m lucky. As a voc-tech teacher in an arts & communications program, I can help students with their writing without the limits of having to worry about standardized testing. But it’s an uphill battle that is now being undercut by technology people trying to sell AI to education.
Friends, we have to do better. We have to make sure our kids are reading and writing. And that might mean some of us need to learn to write better.
Unfortunately, if you’re reading these words, you already know this. Those who should read them won’t. Because they are part of the problem.
But, what do I know? I can’t even spell diarhea.
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Appearances!
On October 5th, I’ll be doing a signing at Barnes & Noble in Smithfield, Rhode Island. I believe this will be similar to my signing in July in Wareham.
October 26th is going to be really cool! I’ll be appearing at Barnes & Noble in Wareham, Massachusetts, again, as part of a Halloween event that will feature Paul Tremblay, Greg F. Gifune, Maureen Boyle, Kathleen Brunelle, Christa Carmen, and Derek Mola.
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A few weeks back I posted a short story called “The Death Museum” for paid-Patrons as a thank you. This week Patreon began allowing creators the chance to sell individual posts or collections of posts through our shops. As a result, I’m selling “The Death Museum” to anyone who wants to read it.
The price through the Patreon website is $3. The price through the Patreon Apple App is $4.50. Because of recent changes that Apple has made with its commerce stuff, subscribing and buying through the app actually costs more because Apple is charging Patreon (and its creators) more. I will see the same amount of money no matter how you pay for it.
This is a story that I really like so I’m hoping people will read it.
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This became another long one today. Thanks for reading!
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Gautham: Bill Gauthier.com 
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