Approach to incorrect answers from teachers

[Boglin]

I saw a learning journal entry for my DS today which has got me thinking about something. He wanted help with a maths problem, the teacher showed him how to work something out. He arrived at the correct answer, the teacher then said that was incorrect and wrote down a different answer. Fair enough, the teacher isn't a maths teacher and it really isn't important for now but it got me thinking that there are likely to be more occasions where DS arrives at a different answer to the teacher.

How would you advise your child to deal with this situation? I would never want to undermine the teachers and won't allow my children to be disrespectful but I know that precision is important to DS and he is likely to become upset if he is being told something is wrong when he knows it to be right (talking more about qualitative stuff like maths here, rather than anything open to interpretation).

[shonkyklingonmakeup]

Coach him on asking respectful questions. "how did you work that out? can you explain why my answer is wrong? didn't you miss a step in your working here?" sort of thing.
Good teachers will say something like "oh! whoops! you're right!" and model how to be a good learner. (as in: mistakes happen, no big deal)

[Boglin]

Thank you, I'll do that, I will try and build on the 'beautiful mistakes' thing they do at school as well. I just know how indignant he gets at home if you think he's wrong when he's right and don't think that would go down so well in the classroom!

[MrTinky]

When our two were at primary, there were times the teacher(s) got some basic stuff wrong. Different teachers responded differently, from a cool "hey that's right, well done" to a "well I downloaded it from the web so it must be right". In maths especially, a mistake can be a really good learning / discussion point, irrespective of whether its the kids or the teachers.
As well as the shon* good suggestion, you could also suggest going to see the teacher after class in the break to discuss it one to one.

[LetItGoToRuin]

When this has happened to DD we have tended to explain it at home, but not raise it with the teacher. Unless it is for some important test, it’s not worth scoring points.

If a teacher repeatedly makes the same mistake (such as repeatedly ‘correcting’ the same spelling), I would encourage the child to approach the teacher diplomatically, along the lines suggested by previous posters (“can we check together in a dictionary, because I’m a bit confused”).

For one-off errors though, I’d sort it out at home (prove the maths, use the dictionary), and then have a little chat with my child about the fact that teachers are not perfect, carefully balanced with a reminder about how amazing/valuable they are overall!

[Boglin]

Thanks MrTinky and LetItGo, those both sound like good approaches. Diplomacy is not his strong point right now so will definitely try and develop that with him!