Spellings

Yesterday one of the newspapers reported that one of the top schools in England had introduced spelling tests for A- level students ( High school). This was after the school reportedly saw students who couldn't spell basic words or punctuate sentences yet still those students passed English at GCSEs with A grades.
Whereas the paper went on to speculate that exams have moved on to testing other things and so the basics are ignored , I feel the answer is much simpler than that. Technology that we use today is making life so simple that we are actually not learning anything. Microsoft word and other programs where you type in text all have built in spell checkers such that you never need to learn how to spell. Whether its an essay or an email you never need to pick up a dictionary to find out how to spell words so can we really blame this current generation for not knowing how to spell?
Back in the day when we wrote letters by hand and handed in hand written assignments the use of the dictionary was more widespread but nowadays you dont need one its all done for you and thus you don't learn anything.
So as we push for things to be simpler to use and engage, let us not forget that making things simpler does not really benefit us in term our learning.