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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster
emkana · 19/10/2010 12:32

I am nice, I really am. Smile

Dd only brought the homework back yesterday, I saw it when came in at 6 pm (had been to a friend's) and then I wondered about it.

Admittedly two threads are a bit overkill, but I do really wonder how I could do this in the best, non-offensive way. Writing it down I find it even harder to hit the right, non-offensive tone. It is tricky in English (cf the thread currently going about the frustrating way English people communicate) - Germans can be blunt and direct but I don't want to come across that way, and after 12 years in the UK I've gone off bluntness anyway, but still find it tricky to get it exactly right in English.

OP posts:
arses · 19/10/2010 13:01

Right, well.. why are you going in to school today? Do you have another reason for being there or is it solely to address this issue?

If you are there for another reason, I would be tempted to deal with that, then attach a note to the offending piece of returned homework saying something like:

"I am a bit unsure as to why this has been marked incorrect. My understanding of imperatives is [insert definition in your own words], which matches dd's work above.I would value some written guidance on the examples marked incorrect to avoid futher confusion".

If you deal with it face to face, you are going to get into a situation where the teacher hasn't a clue what you are talking about, will try to justify it using examples as per the other thread and you will have to explain where she is wrong in some detail which has the potential to be cringe-inducing in the extreme, particularly if she believes she is correct and attempts to justify her corrections. If you ask in writing, she will have the opportunity to go away and research imperatives and learn for future reference, and will be more inclined to accept your correction at face value, I think. She may even say, then, that it was just a miscorrection.. saving her and you embarrassment.

PaisleyPumpkin · 19/10/2010 13:10

'chair' is a tricky one for a year 3.

Porcelain · 19/10/2010 13:20

One thing you may also want to bear in mind, is that sometimes teachers have to teach things they know are incorrect, because it's in the curriculum. I teach secondary science, which isn't a great comparison, but there have been times when a change of curriculum or exam board has changed things like the definitions of key words to be technically incorrect, some borderline or complicated cases get assigned to the mark scheme or not. However, if I kept teaching the correct definitions, my students would lose marks in an exam. It's completely nuts and leaves me torn between following my calling and educating children and doing my job and getting them their qualifications.

It's worth bringing up, I often chat to parents about the issue, just don't automatically presume she is being ignorant.

Deliaskis · 19/10/2010 13:27

I agree you should bring it up. I do think it's important to know how your language work, if for no other reason than it makes it much easier to learn other languages.

I also think it's important for teachers not to teach kids things that are incorrect (although I can see Porcelain must be in a tricky situation sometimes), and that really, they need to take responsibility for the accuracy of what they impart. We all learn new things all the time, and teachers are not exempt from this by virtue of their position. If nothing else, it might make this teacher re-check some of her lessons to be sure that they are correct.

I had a primary school teacher who once marked a spelling wrong when it was right, and made me copy out her (wrong) spelling 20 times. Mum had a fit (in writing), and rightly so. If you're going to correct other people (whether you're a teacher or not), better be correct when you do so!

D

ZZZenAgain · 19/10/2010 13:35

"One thing you may also want to bear in mind, is that sometimes teachers have to teach things they know are incorrect, because it's in the curriculum."

Good grief porcelain, it makes me want to have a screamig hissy fit at the very least. Honestly then our curriculum needs a serious rehaul so it doesn't include incorrect information which teachers have to pass on.

Original poster
emkana · 19/10/2010 16:39

Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

Went in, held h/w under teacher's nose and said feebly "Excuse me, why is this wrong?" She looked at it and said that "talk" is actually right. Fine. Then she said "enjoy is not a verb, that means not a doing word, so your dd shouldn't have used enjoy there"

at which point I just said "okay thank you" and left the room, stunned

Shock
OP posts:
backwardpossom · 19/10/2010 16:44

Enjoy is not a verb... good grief.

Actually, that reminds me of when I teach verbs to the kids (I have to to teach them in English first before going on to the German/Spanish/French because they don't really know what verbs are) and when I ask what a verb is, they say, "a doing word". So I ask them for examples and I get, "run, jump, walk" etc. So then I give examples like, "the cat sleeps on the sofa" and they can tell me that sleep is the verb, but when I say "the books are on the shelf" they can't point out that "are" is the verb - because it's not a 'doing' word (if that makes sense?) - your dd's teacher sounds like the kids I teach. Shocking, really.

wotnochocs · 19/10/2010 16:51

Dd had to do a homework. There was a list of words,

make
do
chair
talk
glove

etc. She had to underline all the imperatives. She underlined all talk and the teacher marked it as wrong.

What a stupid homework to set! Whether they are imperatives depends on context surely,they need the rest of the sentence!

LittleRedPumpkin · 19/10/2010 16:54

She sounds as if she really has no idea what she's talking about. Have any of the other parents noticed this? It's really not on for your DD's class to have to put up with this.

Btw, I think the reason people struggle with verbs in English is that they learn grammar via other languages. In Latin and French, the infinitive is all one word (etre, avoir, and so on), whereas in English it is two. I was doing Latin grammar with a postgrad the other day and I think that was her problem.

arses · 19/10/2010 16:56

See, told you that you should have done it in writing. Now it is embarrassing.

arses · 19/10/2010 16:58

Incidentally, I would be far more concerned that she doesn't understand that enjoy is a verb than the imperative issue.

Absolutely, it is about context.

LittleRedPumpkin · 19/10/2010 17:09

Agree, arses.

ChippingIn · 19/10/2010 17:12

I just spat tea all over my keyboard! (I wasn't being 'MN careful' as I didn't think this thread was likely to cause harm!!).

How did you refrain from laughing and saying 'What did you just say??' ??

FFS - I would now be writing to the Head explaining they have a Year 3 teacher claiming 'enjoy' is not a verb.... for crying out loud what is it coming to?!

pickledbabe · 19/10/2010 17:14

wotnochocs

"Dd had to do a homework. There was a list of words,

make
do
chair
talk
glove

etc. She had to underline all the imperatives. She underlined all talk and the teacher marked it as wrong.

What a stupid homework to set! Whether they are imperatives depends on context surely,they need the rest of the sentence!"

that's the point though, Talk is an imperative - as you could read that as a full sentence - "Talk!" and you can with "make" (i've heard it on friends where Ross tell the dog to "Make!" ie, do a poo.

Of course, if they're words in part of a sentnece, then make and do are both, as is talk - "make this!", "do this!", "tall more clearly!"

your DD's teacher has the smae problem as the OP's teacher.

arses · 19/10/2010 17:20

"Chair that meeting, Jones."
"Glove up, doctor" or "glove that baby" (yes, "glove" is a transitive verb).

Even the nouns here are also verbs Hmm

ZZZenAgain · 19/10/2010 17:22

for crying out loud indeed

if she doesn't know what an imperative is and she does not know that to enjoy is a verb, I think you better get a decent grammar workbook and teach your dd yourself. Honestly why are they teaching this stuff when they have zero idea about it? It would be better to just leave it.

fgs

tokyonambu · 19/10/2010 17:33

". In Latin and French, the infinitive is all one word (etre, avoir, and so on), whereas in English it is two."

Which is why, of course, you get all the crap about "not splitting infinitives". 18th century writers about English got it into their heads that it was a degenerate form of Latin, so wanted to impose rules that mirrored those of Latin. As an infinitive is one word in Latin, they wanted to see "to go" as being the direct equivalent of "ire", and therefore objected to the insertion of an adverb ("to boldly go") into a space which wasn't there in Latin. I get really fed up of awkward, ambiguous, hackneyed avoidance of "split infinitives" where the adverb floats awkwardly into the adjacent clauses (things like "I tried accurately to describe English grammar", where the accurately is wrestling with the tried, or "I tried to describe accurately English grammar" which is plain ugly, or "I tried to describe English grammar accurately" in which the verb and adverb are so separated they're filing for divorce next week - "I tried to accurately describe English grammar" is bang-on, and pah! to Latinate bores).

ZZZenAgain · 19/10/2010 17:34

manic hysterical laughs and mutterings about the damn curriculum and fix it fgs

where did you get "glove that baby!" from? LOL

ZZZenAgain · 19/10/2010 17:36

for me, "I tried to describe English grammar accurately" sounds best

although I couldn't care less frankly about not splitting infitives

tokyonambu · 19/10/2010 17:36

"yes, "glove" is a transitive verb"

In my field, surface is becoming a transitive verb. It's truly horrible.

LittleRedPumpkin · 19/10/2010 17:41

Well, adverbs are bad for prose style anyway.

em, when you do decide what to do, please come back and tell us, won't you? I'd love to see how the headteacher, for example, responds to finding out your DD's class is being taught that 'enjoy' isn't a verb.

arses · 19/10/2010 17:41

ZZZenAgain, that is the beauty of language. I didn't have to get it from anywhere but my own brain (once I'd had a quick check that glove was, indeed, a verb).

"Unhand her, evil villain!", "Glove that baby, wench!". With camp pantomime intonation, please.

ZZZenAgain · 19/10/2010 17:41

I just like it, am twitching to use it

arses · 19/10/2010 17:42

Adverbs are bad for prose style? All adverbs?