Allowing SMS LINGO AT SCHOOL

The Primary complaint that a student (from Std-I to PhD) has is the lack of time during the examination. With the new lingo coming handy at these times of crisis.. They say that they shall be able to perform better during the examination. With the
SMS-lingo catching up even the regular spellings have gone for a toss.

I recollect during my college years, (definitely not school) I would take my lecture notes in a manner something similar to the prevailing SMS lingo, because I didn’t want to miss anything that my lecturer says (speed & accuracy of content) and at the same time I had to protect my hard-work (of taking down notes & i also color code it) from the eyes of notes-grabbers. You know.. Notes-Grabbers are those who rarely
attend classes…but get very comfy with the regulars just months before the exams so that they can take the notes and Xerox them and walk away with “Wow.. Without attending classes how did u manage to score so well” kind of applause from all the
faculty members. So, armed with my cryptic notes… I was well safeguarded against Notes-Grabbers. It’s true I compile my cryptic notes and safely lock it away at home. So i was never their favorite. Many note-grabbers have indeed confessed that its far more rewarding to sit though the lecture, rather than trying to decipher the contents of my notes. At least they would be rewarded with attendance in the former case.

Lets not stray away form the topic of discussion… coming to which, The principle behind SMS-lingo is to condense the spelling but conveying the content to save money and time. Everything in this society goes through a transition phase. This is how I see it,

We remember our grandparents telling that they studied in Regional-language medium schools and have fared well. They did not miss going to a English medium school. They fared well in life…the reason I would say is they had to prove themselves to a
limited population.. may be their Village-Taluk-District or even state. The completion was limited.

Next, Our parents… they might have spend their educational years in the regional language medium schools and some extra time to master the understanding & usage of the most prevailing language “English”. They forced themselves towards familiarizing with English so that they would not be lagging behind in their career and social circles. This made them see beyond the local Village-Taluk-District. The competition just got a little wide.

Now, ourselves…Our parents made it their life’s mission to send us to schools that taught English. Knowledge of one more language increased our chances of survival in the National and international arena. We, Indians had to equip ourselves with
few more popular languages other than English… like Hindi (if you are facing competition from the north) or any or all of the South Indian languages (why… well… u all know why). That’s not all.. There are many who take the pains to study other foreign languages as well like German, Spanish, French, Italian…even Swahili..Etc..depending on their job description. So on the competition scale, its the widest as the world just became a global village.

So.. What does this have to do with “Allowing SMS lingo at school” and other areas of correspondence? We all are today’s participants in the competition of successful existence…bound to retire some time in the future. After which…the next generation will take the reigns of development (self –national-international) in their hands. So it’s our duty to equip them well.

The Outage to accept SMS-lingo at school comes after the news of this lingo being accepted at Britain-NewZeland.etc…the Transition has begun…lets not bury our heads like an ostrich and try to wade it out. Certainly, it will not be practically possible to allow the students to answer all the exams in this manner. We can hit the right ground only after trying various permutations and combinations. Lets accept that its just one more language and start treating it like one.