DDs teacher giving serious misinformation WWYD?

[phantomnamechanger]

How to deal with this please......

DD has recently got a new English teacher. They are reading Pride & Prejudice (just started). Today in the lesson, the teacher has on several occasions referred to it being set in "the Victorian era"
that's a massive error to make, right? how do we point this out? DD was like when she told me, but there will be other kids who believe the teacher and for whom that will stick.
DD did not want to correct the teacher for fear of being reprimanded/thought rude.
WWYD?

Haven't read the whole thread but DH says that P+P is set in the long 18th century.

Well, good for you OP. I'd have been bolshier but you handled it kindly and sensitively.

And you know what, speaking as an academic? You get to get up in front of a room of people and have them listen to every word you say and take notes on it. That is a great, great privilege. So if you get it wrong you can expect to get told about it.

We all stuff up from time to time (hopefully not that badly though) and if she is any kind of teacher she will deal with it gracefully. She is wrong, not you, and the truth and those girls' education matter more than her feelings.

dame - that was me.

He is an idiot.

How can Greeks come 'before' Romans? Which Romans? When? What does it mean to say Vikings are 'after' the Romans?

If he'd left the Egyptians and Greeks out of it, I'd assume he means that the Roman occupation of Britain came before the Viking raids on Britain, and I'd say that's fair. But the Romans coexisted with Greeks, Vikings, and Egyptians. There were, IIRC, two Egyptian legions in the Roman army. Lots of Romans spoke Greek and were educated by Greek tutors.

He should know that, if he is going to pronounce on education.

And he's quite right DrC. He sounds like my kind of guy!

LRD does Michael Gove wind you up a bit, then?

How could you tell?

Actually, I think this is the basic problem on this thread. People are using one kind of category to describe another kind of category. Referring to periods of time by geographic descriptors is stupid. Referring to genres of writing by periods of time is not totally stupid, but it is quite dubious in terms of the unstated assumptions it carries. And if that is what's behind this teacher's mistake, it's not helped her class, has it?

I have a bit of an issue when American writers are described as Victorian if you want another worm can to open.

Opened it upthread.

I love the idea some have touted on this thread that perhaps the teacher has a sophisticated, academic understanding of the term "Victorian" that encompasses the late 18th century to the early 20th century, when in fact it's quite clear that she is an ignoramus who should on no account be teaching English literature to a GCSE class.

Only, as they say, on Mumsnet...

I always understood The Victorian novel to be concerned with themes of social realism and change in the matter part of the 19th century. But this does not mean other literature wasn't being produced at the time - Romanticism etc in the early part of the century. Then of course we have modernism/aestheticism which shifted away from realism and into subjectivity of self, experimental structure/narrative etc

But this is all very broad - for every few writers going on about capitalist conceptions of social mobility/ industrial revolution/lurid weekly episodes etc there are others continuing romantic themes etc - rather like Egyptians in the roman army.

Sorry RL taking over...interesting debate ...it has got some rusty cogs turning Am doing eng lit PGDE next year

We Americans may call some of our architecture Victorian ("a pretty Victorian village") and some of our values and mores Victorian, but not generally our literature.

lionheart - I am teaching Ibsen's A Doll's House at the moment and keep having to stop myself saying 'Victorian'. I should really ask the Norwegian girl in the class what the Norwegian equivalent is

A friend lived in a 1930s semi and her next door neighbours referred to their house as a Victorian house.

Why would it be fin de siecle?

It clearly presents a discourse of various enlightenment concepts - Good grief, really? And there I was thinking it mostly presented the urgency of nailing a suitable chap within a limited time frame!

I'd better get back to Coronation Street ...

And the need for shirtless Colin Firth, garlic, don't forget that.

(Though I could never see the appeal, myself.)

One of my Year 11 girls refused to speak to me for a week, after I said that Colin Firth was a terrible Darcy.

Awww.

I thought the bloke in Death Comes to Pemberley was much more how I imagined him. I really enjoyed that.