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Teaching: Adjusting to new standards

 Today was our assigned day to dive into the standards for my courses. I will teach 5 levels this year, grades 8 through 12. 

For four of the five classes, I'm teaching with standards known as GCSE, compiled and administrated for schools around the world by Cambridge University. The standards are similar to the British system, and my seniors will sit for their A Level exams at the end of this school year.

I have taught with standards for years, so this is nothing new to me. Still, I want to do my best here, so today, I used some down time to go through the standards and carefully highlight the skills they were recommending that I teach.

Imagine my surprise when I was going over the standards for spelling.


As you can see, dear reader, my American laptop spotted an error. There were many errors, pointing out the differences between the American English that I've been teaching and grading in, and the British English of the standards. Analyse was another oft-corrected word.

New standards. New spellings. I'll have my work cut out for me this year!
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