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?

OP reporting back with an update, and wanting more advice as I am disappointed in how this has been handled. Will be long, sorry
TIA

First another AIBU. AIBU to expect the teacher to at least have the courtesy to reply to my email, sent Friday 10th? Given that I was polite and tactful and alerted her to her error before she dug herself into an even bigger hole and made herself look foolish? All it needed to be was "Thank you for the email, silly me, of course your DD is correct I will make sure I tell the class asap" . She could even have saved face by saying she had realised her error and was already making plans to correct it. I did not want gushing thanks or a public acknowledgement (DD would have been embarrassed if for example this was mentioned in class)

DD had the teacher again yesterday - she only has her 3 times a fortnight so this was the first time she had seen the class since the first 2 lessons after which I sent the email. Their other English teacher however had in the interim mentioned the correct monarch & time period and that Napoleon/nelson/Wellington were important figures at the time. Possibly a coincidence due to the part of the book they were covering, and not necessarily triggered by my email, though I do consider this may have been part of the setting things straight within the department. The other teacher's reference to Victorian was not mentioned/corrected at all though.

Anyway, yesterday the teacher was all "I don't know what I was thinking I realised as soon as you left last lesson that I had been saying Victorian, I was confused with the book I had been studying with my class the period before " Now, I do not buy this at all. Firstly the error was made in 2 lessons on 2 days. So she made the same "mistake" twice in a row? Once would have been bad enough, and you would make damn sure you corrected yourself immediately in the next lesson, no? Now, again I am not expecting her to publicly point out that someone's mum has emailed in and whoops teacher is wrong. But I really think she has done her self no favours in coming across as dishonest. What are DD and her friends to think? They know I emailed! Are they to think That teachers do not admit mistakes, do not acknowledge when pointed out? Do not thank people who point things out? How are they supposed to respect her when she can't even be courteous and honest? I dread to think how she would have handled this if DD had had the nerve to immediately query this in the lesson. Certainly not well done have 500 house points as someone suggested earlier. Don't think DD will be inclined to do so in future either now.

so what to do? I really do feel it is not on to not reply to my email and not acknowledge DD being correct. However, if I escalate things, given teacher has obviously not appreciated my intervention, I do not want her holding a grudge and making things tricky for DD.

I'd let it go but make sure dd can ask you/google if she thinks her teacher is wrong in future.

I'd say the teacher is probably embarrassed by her glaring error.

The teacher is embarassed and trying to cover her tracks. I think you saud way back that she is quite new in the job? New teachers are often lacking in confidence and don't want to admit getting stuff wrong. Being able to admit you don't know or that you have gotten stuff wrong comes with confidence.

I understand why you are annoyed, but just let it go. She will be more careful with her preparation in future, I'm sure.

She should have acknowledged your email, but I don't think her way of dealing with it with the class was bad. She admitted she had made an error rather than just not mentioning it. It was a white lie to say that she had confused it with another book to save face, or maybe she did get mixed up with the previous book. I don't think it is massively dishonest to say that, or that it matters really, as long as she corrected the error. I can understand your concern that her understanding of the book is not great though. I'd be more concerned about that. Is she doing teaching practice or an NQT? I've forgotten which it was.
Did you CC the other teacher or do you think she has mentioned it to her? If the second then I think it was good of her to admit it to the other teacher so it could be cleared up by both of them.

Let it go. She is inexperienced, embarrassed, humilated and is now correcting her mistake for the class. What do you want from her? Public self-flagellation?

Let it go now, but if the opportunity arises to speak to her directly at a parents' evening, you might be able to mention that you wondered if she'd received your email as you hadn't had a reply...

But jump on her if there's another error like that!

Actually, thinking about it I can understand why she didn't reply to your email too. (Embarrassment.) She has dealt with it and corrected her error and that is the main thing. I don't think you need worry about the effect on your dd of how she has dealt with this. I'm sure she will be fine. I would only escalate if there are further glaring errors, but I'm sure she will be very careful from now on.

The definition of 'misinformation' that I hold to is this:

false or inaccurate information, especially that which is deliberately intended to deceive

I'm not sure the teacher has done that.

Let it go.

OK, I bow to the wisdom of MN and let it go. I did not want her to give me a medal or do penance - a simple thank you and sorry would have done, just to acknowledge the email.

I do still think not replying to an email is RUDE. But there is nothing to be gained by making more of this than need be. To clarify, I did not copy the other teacher in, nor the HoD, so if that was not a coincidence I agree she has shared it and possibly asked for advice on how to backtrack.

We have already deliberately NOT made an appt to see her at parents evening, to save her blushes ! But that was mainly due to being forewarned we would only be able to have a very limited number of appts and being more concerned about seeing staff where DD is thinking of choosing options.

Serious misinformation?

Serious misinformation would be telling them that pregnancy can be prevented by crossing their fingers or that the world was created by blob monsters from the Planet Zog.

She has misdated a novel by a handful of decades, Yes, she ought to have known better. Yes, it ought to be corrected. But serious misinformation?

OP, I was right with you on it being a bit rubbish that this teacher said the novel was Victorian, but I think now you're being daft, sorry.

You keep saying you 'don't expect a medal', you 'don't expect her to grovel' etc, to the extent that I think actually you do want praise and acknowledgment for dd, more than you're letting on.

You're actually not going to see her on parents' evening 'to save her blushes'?? That's mad.

And actually, whether you 'buy it' or not, it is perfectly possible that the teacher is telling the truth - I spent half a seminar referring to John and Isabella Thornton in Northanger Abbey, because I'd just been talking about Wuthering Heights elsewhere . And even if that is a face-saving excuse, bloody hell, give the woman a break!

Well done to your dd, she was right and the teacher was wrong. Mumsnet have congratulated you, and her, but it doesn't look as though school is going to give you an extra pat on the back this time.

English is a pretty important subject. Will you be able to see the other teacher?

Nit - as you yourself say Well done to your dd, she was right and the teacher was wrong -it would have been nice for the teacher to at least privately acknowledge this rather than totally ignore the fact. She has admitted she made a mistake, yes, (what else could she have done she can hardly insist she's right!) but she could have used this to say whoops yes class, I made an error, I am human, it happens, so please do ask/query/correct me in future......She has done nothing to make herself seem approachable.

I reiterate that I/we did not want praise or thanks or anything that would embarrass DD in public, hence part, and only a tiny part of us deciding not to see that teacher (the real reason being we are only allowed a set number of appt, so we can only book to see about half her teachers anyway!). I just expected the basic courtesy of a reply to my email. She was embarrassed? So was DD & so was I TBH, and I said so!

As I have already said this is the end of the matter. Hopefully there will be no further incidents.

no breatheslowly, we wont bother, we have picked just the subjects that DD has to choose between for her options, so we can find out what the courses entail and help her decide. We are seeing none of the compulsory subjects which include maths, English, PE, RE and 3 different sciences! We are seeing Tech, art, 2 humanities, 2 language and music. If we had concerns about her struggling in any area we would of course see that teacher or phone in at any time to ask for a meeting.

Isn't the important thing that the facts are now clear? Whatever the reason she got it wrong the first time.

Maybe the rest of the class also got their mums to email, and that's why your dd didn't get a private audience in which the teacher apologised and thanked her profusely and admitted she is fallible, as you seem to want? Or maybe she made a mistake just as she said. Maybe your email went into the junk folder? Who knows. Buy your daughter and yourself a little medal or something, and move on.

Blimey,

The OP asked for advice, read it and followed it.

Why the continuing pops at her?

I don't really want to bump this up again, but thank you NannyOgg