Finally, spelling mistakes will deduct points on university entrance exams where writing is a major focus. The Catalan government has backtracked on a fiasco that had simultaneously generated alarm and confusion among students, teachers, and families. The Department of Universities announced on Wednesday that spelling would only deduct points on language and literature exams, but the following day, Thursday, following a public reaction, they quickly hid behind confusion and went back to square one. With less than a week until the university entrance exams, such a spectacle is lamentable. So, from the outset, the ones who fail are the university entrance exam itself: those responsible for its organization. A mistake like this does nothing to enhance the prestige of the exam and, above all, creates insecurity among both students and examiners.
But the underlying question is: is spelling relevant, yes or no? If we look at this improvised back-and-forth with the university entrance exams, it's clear that some educational leaders aren't clear on this. Furthermore, the evolution of students in recent decades shows that spelling, and to a large extent also expressive skills in written language, has been deteriorating. In classrooms, there has been a tendency to dissociate form from content, undervaluing formal aspects: a textbook conceptual error, because it is through careful expression that we can truly define content. In linguistic terms, and following Wittgenstein's philosophy of language, the tool is also content in itself: words map and draw reality. Therefore, writing poorly is already misrepresenting reality.
This process of devaluing form has been accompanied by technological change, with the internet and now artificial intelligence. If a robot already corrects me, why should I make an effort? Why is it necessary for me to learn to write well if a very skilled machine can do it for me? The questions are logical, of course. But then comes a reality check. The uncomfortable answer is that if you let someone else write for you, you're giving up thinking. Because, after all, writing—that is, using language reflexively—is the most human way we have of thinking. Four and a half centuries ago, Montaigne thought and painted himself—he rehearsed himself—through his famous written diary, a few Essays that have marked modernity.
If we want adults who think, who rehearse, it is also necessary that they write formally well, carefully, including spelling (by the way, it is also necessary that they express themselves orally well). Precisely in the era of AI, to ensure that a student knows what they are talking about and what they write, and to prove that they really know how to write, they will have to demonstrate it themselves in front of a blank sheet of paper, as has always been done and as thousands of boys and girls will have to do next week during the three days of the university entrance exam. Their rich vocabulary, their writing technique, and their spelling knowledge will come into play when it comes to putting their acquired knowledge and their analytical skills into writing. And the examiners will have to judge both form and content.
