To be so angry about this stupid English teacher!

[ILikeTrains]

My daughter's just told me how her English teacher has corrected her on her spelling of apostrophe. Not a huge thing to get angry about except that my daughter's spelling it correctly and the teacher keeps telling her to spell it apostrophie! This is her English teacher, how on Earth is she supposed to respect and be inspired by this teacher.

I know it's quite a small this to get annoyed about but it's just really wound me up.

[hackmum]

Lol at making up the word "quintessential".

Also love zipzap's story - top marks for inventiveness.

[captainmummy]

Oh I see. Personally I love 'foreign' words - I love tracing the roots of them. Is it Etymology?

[OxfordBags]

It's from a Greek term, yes, but if we start calling every word with an originally non-English extraction 'foreign', then we'd have virtually no words that weren't technically 'foreign'. Also, the teacher meant it to mean that it wasn't a word used in the UK, like I was coming out with a random foreign word to try to look clever.

[captainmummy]

Onomatopoeia is a foreign word? It's Greek, Isn't it?

[OxfordBags]

Sorry, the onomatopoeia thing is messed-up, I meant that SHE said it was foreign and spelt wrongly.

Well, you have to make a mistake on a pedantry thread, it's the law!

[OxfordBags]

I was a boring swot in school, but my teachers were perplexed by me always getting in trouble with my English A-level teacher. This was because she was thick as pigshit and I couldn't keep my gob shut at some of her clangers. A few precious gems I remember from her:

That I had made up the word quintessential.
That onomatopoeia was not a foreign word and is not spelt onnomattopier.
That chimpanzees are monkeys.
That baby horses are ponies.
That there are no words in the English language with more than 10 syllables - and when I pointed out that antidisestablishmentarianism has more than 10, she tried to give me a detention.

It came to a head when I got sent to the Head for 'insolence'. He asked me what I had done to provoke the teacher, and I told him that I had tried to persuade her that holidays was not spelt 'holliday's'. After that, they realised she was crap and I wan't a bad kid (although a pedantic little smartarse, obviously).

She also took things literally (that made studying the Metaphysical Poets fun - not), and read reeeeally slowly, with her finger under each word. It's a surprise I'm still a bookworm after being taught by her.

[BOF]

back atcha

[AnaisHellWitch]

BOF - no worries.

Mwah

[friday16]

Your general point is right. The only reason I remembered the Einstein-Szilard fridge (which my recollection of reading about, pace Wonkypedia, was that it didn't actually work) was because I've recently been reading about the Einstein-Szilard letter.

It shows that Einstein really, really wasn't an inventor: his physics was fundamental to the Manhattan Project, and yet he hadn't realised the implications (Daran habe ich gar nicht gedacht) and was denied clearance to work on the bomb anyway. All over Europe, various physicists were thinking about nuclear weapons, and in Birmingham actually coming up with viable designs using plausible amounts of material and yet Einstein made essentially no contribution.

[BOF]

God, no, not at all, Anais! You really made me think when you pointed out that having an adult 'authorise' the wrong spelling/grammar could be totally counter-productive with some more academically able children with autism.

[AnaisHellWitch]

BOF I agree and I am sorry if my posts have been interpreted as goady. I share the same opinion of the marvellous TAs.

[BOF]

That's brilliant, Zipzap

[zipzap]

This has just reminded me of the 6th form. We were all expected to give assemblies on a regular basis, which was a bit of a pain. Somebody in the year above had the bright idea of inventing a saint from the 10th Century who happened to provide quotes for exactly what you needed him to say without having to bother looking up for a real quote

He became quite the fixture and regularly featured in lots of assemblies, all the students knew who he was and he survived and was still being quoted a pretty long time after we left (according to a friend's younger brother at the school).

The teachers were all really perplexed that lots of the students were able to quote this one obscure saint but had no clue about any others. They never did find out - although somebody from the year above did end up going back to the school as a teacher so I guess she must have told them. or just carried on quoting him when she needed a convenient quote and smiling if any of the pupils quoted him!

[BOF]

Thanks, Moggie- I wasn't trying to be holier-than-thou, just offering my own perspective.

[zipzap]

friday16 I just knew there was going to be some tiny thing that he invented

At least on wikipedia it says that they reckon he didn't do much of the inventing himself, it was more his partner and he did the theoretical and paperwork side of things...

And anyhow - it's not like he's really famous for that in comparison to his physics stuff... (that's my argument and I'm sticking to it ) They could have chosen so many people and yet they chose someone who is not really an inventor invented something really obscure with somebody else.

[moggiek]

Well said, BOF. Perhaps wrong of me to generalise.

[BOF]

I guess it depends, moggiek. For me and my daughter with severe LDs, I thank the universe for the TAs she has, who may not be formally educated, but are deeply compassionate and kind, supportive people willing to take direction from a suitably qualified teacher, and who somehow manage to deal with challenging behaviour ranging from violence to toileting problems, while maintaining dignity and, yes, love, for the children they help.

I know this isn't the same as for everyone with children in mainstream, and I'm not trying to pull some kind of top trumps (I hate that), but I think it's important to bear in mind the priorities for different groups of children.

[moggiek]

Oh, Anais

[AnaisHellWitch]

The cover supervisor who writes, "we was / we done" will be teaching my son until July 2014.

[moggiek]

I know that I'm 54 and more than a tad intolerant at times, but some of these stories make me want to weep! Someone said that TAs are often young and less well educated than teachers. If they are not well enough educated to understand basic grammar what on earth are they doing in a classroom???