Lighting the Way

Recently, I posted on Facebook about the fact that there are two different words spelled <indent>. One means to press inward, and the other means to have a 'toothed' appearance.

I said, "When we simply show one indent and one indentation, and not both of them, when we fail to differentiate different forms, we miss an opportunity to equip our students with a critical understanding that extends far beyond mere orthography: Just because one thing looks like another thing on the surface doesn't mean they're the same."

Today, I saw a bulletin board a teacher made for her classroom for the new school year. She had decorated it with lightbulbs and a study of the word light. The bulletin board asks the question, "What does this word mean?" and provides some answers. It says that light is a noun that means 'brightness,' a verb that means 'to produce light,' and an adjective meaning 'not weighing a lot.'

OOPS.

Here's why that's a problem: