to think that a teacher should know the difference between lose and loose?

[Lovecat]

I am sure someone will tell me IABU, but I need to rant about this!

Before Christmas, DD managed to lose her reading book somewhere between school and home (ie it never made it home in her bag but the teacher swears blind it isn't in the classroom). There was a bit of a stand off between the teacher and myself (I knew it hadn't come home, she basically refused to believe that) with the result that DD didn't have a reading book or was heard reading for the first half of the term. I was rather annoyed by this but we read other books at home.

At the parent's evening she repeated that DD had lost the book and we must look harder for it at home. I reiterated that DD had never brought it home and it was somewhere in school (the teacher couldn't even tell me what the book was at this point so for all I knew it could have been found and put back on the shelf!). I also said I was unimpressed that she had not been read with, but could we start again with a clean slate. She made me promise that we would once again search for the book at home and after half term she would get another book.

All of the above is to explain why, in her reading diary, the teacher wrote 'happy reading - try not to LOOSE this one!'

This teacher is not dyslexic, before that one gets mentioned. I know that lose/loose is a common misspelling and people assume loose is right because of the 'oo' sound in lose (darn phonics!) but this is a teacher! Teaching 7-8 year olds to spell!

I'm so tempted to circle it in red pen.... but I won't. I'm not that much of a loon. I shall merely grind my teeth and count the days til DD is out of her class...

I remember in my first year at secondary school we had a spelling test. The teacher read out fifty words for us to write down and be checked.
The teacher said I had only one mistake - 'peninsular'. It was 'peninsula' she said. When I insisted that peninsular was also correct she got all hoity-toity and said I was being cheeky to question her spelling, stopped any further discussion and moved on.
Later I got out my dictionary and sure enough - peninsula is the noun and peninsular is the adjective. But it was too late to do anything about it. I always resented her for that.

Reminds me of a girl I went to college with who when applying for jobs as an English teacher put school principle on all the envelopes.

ShowOfHands, I am the first to argue that the occasional typo by a teacher is inevitable and should not be corrected in red pen as this is incredibly rude, but I would speak to the HT about the level of illiteracy demonstrated by your dd's teacher. It is shocking.

can a teacher actually teach if they're dyslexic?

My SIL is and does. Year 3. She's learned coping strategies over the years so that she manages her dyslexia, she checks her spellings carefully, and she's open with the children, so they know that if she makes a mistake, it's OK to tell her, and it's equally ok for them to make mistakes and be corrected. She's really good at helping the kids find ways to manage things that they find difficult.

DD2's teacher puts 'Please practice this with your child' on every worksheet. The difference between practice and practise is small but significant! And in one of DD2's workbooks the teacher had written 'puzzel' for puzzle. WTF

Can I hijack a wee bit?

We all seem to be agreed that teachers ought to get their spellings right at least most of the time but what about nursery staff?

My three-year-old's 'diary' contains such wonderful comments as "GroupieBaby has been spending lots of time with dad this week as mum is suffering with flew."

Ouch.

Groupie, that would make me wince, but I'm not as bothered by it as I would be if it came from a teacher - after all, I would not be expecting a nursery worker to teach my child to read or write, and the child itself cannot read so won't notice the heinous crime

She's written that in the new book JUST to be a bitch and make a 'clever' point.

Well, she fucked that up didn't she and I would most definitely point it out.

I'd be tempted to add 'smartarse' on the end of it too. But that bit would probably be in my head :)

YADNBU

I agree with jengnr; she has done this just to be nippy, so pointing it out should be a pleasure.

Please dont circle it in red pen. I am a teacher and know perfectly well the difference between loose and lose, your and you're etc. In fact spelling and grammar is a real bug bear of mine, it makes me so cross when I see terrible spelling mistakes on things like signs and letters.

However, when a teacher is marking dozens of books/homeworks/reading records/learning journals every single day (squeezed in between endless paperwork, afl grids, case study observations, lesson planning, data crunching, iep reviews, parent consultation reports) then they may make mistakes that normally they would be mortified at.

If it was on a letter or a worksheet, then YWNBU to be very about it. However, if it was scribbled into a reading record then I think you should cut the teacher a bit of slack to be honest. The mistake should not have been made, but if you red pen it they will just think you have nothing better to do with your time then nitpick the mistakes of people who, believe or not, are human beings.

The not bothering to get your DD another book, and the smartarse comment are, of course, separate issues

Oh dear.

Yes she should know the difference but really is it hugely important in the scale of things in the world? maybe she is wonderful at maths , teaching is demanding, cut her or him some slack

I'm afraid I couldn't resist " We did not lose the first book, nor will we cut out the pages of this one, leaving them loose."

You got off lightly.

The same thing happened to dd1. One day a book didn't come home but the school insisted we'd lost it. They refused to let her have another one. They insisted it was lost at home despite nothing being listed as booked out to her at school. She had lots of individual help due to sn, so it could be one of many TAs that forgot.

For 2 years, she was banned from bringing her book home, and although she read with me at home, she hated being different. I eventually offered to pay for it, despite us not losing it. They said, even if we paid, she couldn't bring one home, until the book came back, which it couldn't because we didn't have it. I donated a children's encyclopedia (duplicate present circa £20) in lieu. Still not good enough.

2 years later they let her have books, except she's now so paranoid of losing the flipping things that she hardly ever brings them home, says she prefers to get in trouble for not reading than risk losing a book.

pouffepants! That's appalling.

pouffepants That's awful! Talk about a way to put a child off reading and make them really anxious about books. I would be complaining to the governors about that. It's just such a poor attitude.

Re all the 'cut the teacher some slack, everyone makes mistakes' viewpoint, I'd be more inclined to do this if the teacher had shown herself to be capable of cutting a small child some slack over one 'lost' book. To make a remark about it some time later in a reading book, as if it was crime of the century (and the OP says the loss didn't happen anyway) seems really petty and, frankly, not demonstrating the maturity I would hope for in a teacher. So you bet I would not be letting her off making a mistake, if she wasn't willing to do the equivalent for one of her pupils.

can a teacher actually teach if they're dyslexic?

Yes but they have to work incredibly hard to check everything thoroughly, using a dictionary regularly and checking with colleagues.

mistakes happen, nobody is inflatable and everybody makes mistakes ever teachers.

Yes it was on purpose.

Admittedly I'm an English teacher, so incredibly biased, but to those asking if this matters, it really does. Spelling, punctuation and grammar are road maps to meaning. Children have very few models of good use of Standard English. My top set Y11s persist in neglecting to use capital letters despite my frequent (and increasingly desperate) reminders because their usual methods of communication either make the corrections for them or don't require accuracy. They actually laugh at the suggestion that they use correct punctuation on Facebook because it would make them look like 'losers'.
For those who say it's unimportant in other subjects, I couldn't disagree more. The job of an English teacher becomes so much harder when other teachers aren't able to spell or punctuate correctly. All teachers should be modelling excellent literacy skills. Much as I dislike him, this is one area in which Gove and I are in agreement.
We all make occasional errors. When looking back through exercise books, I have been mortified to see a misplaced apostrophe in 'you're' as a result of rushed marking. However, I always correct the error straight away and triple check any correspondence going home, even a casual note. Communication is one of the key aspects of my job. If I don't communicate correctly, I'm not being professional.

lose/loose? Seriously?! I'd be circling that bastard in a pen. I really wouldn't be able to help myself.
I hate spelling mistakes at the best of times. That's one that would drive me up the wall, though. Especially coming from a teacher who was giving me grief about maybe or maybe not losing a book.

Raum am having a chuckle at your auto correct which has substituted 'inflatable' for infallible. Now picturing books flying around like butterflies having been 'loosed' in the classroom by floating inflatable people.

Red pen it. I've corrected so many letters from school and sent them back in to the HT. She loved me so much. :)

Oh please do highlight it.. Just for the sheer point of it. Or write a reply stating "We didn't LOSE the first book" that should kill 2 birds and all that....I can't believe she hasn't with your daughter and given her another book for a whole term.

I am in complete agreement with Amaxapax. If you do not provide a child with the right tools eg. spelling, grammar, punctuation, then you cannot expect said child to be able to express him/herself correctly, or even adequately.

Amaxapax. I do see where you are coming from and agree that correct spelling is important but DC should have learnt basic spelling etc in primary school. Not all can of course. I didn't and neither did my three dyslexics. They are very good at maths and the sciences and I don't care if teachers in those subjects write extreme as exstream etc.

You don't have to teach their subjects and they shouldn't have to teach yours.

If you find spelling and grammar easy lucky you. Maybe you were taught well yourself. Not everyone has been.