Teacher marked correct work as incorrect

[MillionToOneChances]

This has been happening a lot lately, but today feels worse as the school's maths coordinator was taking the lesson. My DC had written that 36 was the square root of 1296. Maths coordinator marked it incorrect and said the correct answer was 936.

AIBU to be really frustrated? These incidents are really knocking his faith in school. I know he's a kid and the teacher is just a human being, but my DC does have form for being unfeasibly good at multiplication so a little faith wouldn't have gone amiss if it wasn't an easy sum for the teacher.

[raltheraffe]

I had this when I was about 9 in primary school. We were doing fractions and multiplication and the teacher informed me that 1/2 x 1/2 was 1. I went home and told my mum the teacher is a wally. My mum said perhaps she misheard and thought I said 1/2 + 1/2 and I should go back the next day and ask her what 1/4 x 1/4 was. Teacher answered 1/2. My mum then thundered into school and removed me from the school and moved me to another one.
I think my mum did the right thing to be honest. It was not the first time there had been serious issues with the standard of teaching. The only thing that saddened me is I had some good friends at the first school who I lost touch with due to the move.

[FunkyBoldRibena]

The nice thing about maths is that you can quite easily question the teacher about it and have a reasoned debate about the answer.

The teacher marked the same answer right once and wrong once. Twins, you see. Twins. Two same answers - one marked wrong and one marked right.

[writtenguarantee]

To me, it would depend on why the teacher marked it wrong because little errors like that are fairly common in marking.

The nice thing about maths is that you can quite easily question the teacher about it and have a reasoned debate about the answer. If the teacher responds well to that, then that is a good start.

[cornflakegirl]

Million have you seen the Alex Bellos book "Alex's Adventures in Numberland"? I'm reading it at the moment and really enjoying some of the origami maths. I'm hoping that my DS will find it similarly interesting.

[teacherwith2kids]

Thumbwitch, I absolutely agree that it is counterproductive ... but it is very hard to tell a nervous young teacher that they WILL keep their authority if they admit their mistakes and acknowledge it when they find things hard....

The image of a teacher as 'fount of all knowledge' is quite hard to overcome - how we model for our children our response to e.g. a typo, a teacher's honest mistake (e.g. the multiplication mat linked to on this thread) is important here, as IMO a genuine mistake humbly acknowledged and learned from is FINE, a mistake tenaciously clung to and attempts at correction ridiculed is NOT.

[MillionToOneChances]

Marci, your son rocks

[Thumbwitch]

Which, I guess, could be counterproductive as it will show the more able children that the teacher is inflexible and unable to acknowledge that they are wrong - and the more able children will be less likely to listen to them after that?

[MillionToOneChances]

A sub AIBU aimed at teachers on the thread - AIBU to differentiate this homework for my DS as the teacher hasn't? too late - I already told him he could work out the area too, as long as he showed his workings properly

[teacherwith2kids]

Laughing over the probability one. I was doing an activity around very basic probability - certain, impossible, likely, unlikely. An example given as 'certain' was 'the sun will rise tomorrow'. Cue a HUGE diversion into how we could prove this (e.g. if it was very cloudy), eclipses, astronomy, and star death.

I do feel that a lot of a teacher's attitude in terms of teaching the very able, and their approach to 'not knowing things' comes out of a basic confidence / lack of confidence. An established teacher, who has generally good subject knowledge, will often have the confidence to say 'I don't know' or 'you show us' or 'let's learn together'. However a new teacher, or one who lacks confidence due to being very aware of their own limitations in subject knowledge, may well try to maintain 'control' through 'shutting down' discussion or trying to pose as 'always expert' - because they find challenge threatening and want to 'maintain their authority'.

[Thumbwitch]

Oops, meant to add:
Marci - false logic from that statement - better logic (but still inaccurate) would be "100% of men were once boys" but then that takes the probability aspect out of it as well as ignoring any transgender men around. Your DS should go far.

[Thumbwitch]

Those teachers who cannot think outside of the answer in the book are problematic. Those teachers who cannot accept that the answer in the book is wrong are also problematic. And the inability to understand incorrect phrasing in a question is VERY problematic but seems to be increasingly common.

Merly - you should definitely send the HT Funky's suggested message!

Marci - that teacher as well - problematic.

[sashh]

Merci

I though you were going to say sex change

[Marcipex]

Oh dear Merly.

DS further annoyed the maths teacher when they started teaching Probability.
The text book gives this as an example of 100% probability:'All boys will become men.'

DS argued this is incorrect as some boys will die. Teacher not impressed with DSs reasoning.

[MERLYPUSSEDOFF]

the teacher who marked wrong said '10p and 2p' as the correct answer despite DS providing a combination of coins to make 12p. The other DS got a well done sticker. Hmmmm?

[thecatfromjapan]

By the way, teacherwith2kids, I really loved what you said about attitude. Turning not knowing something into a fantastic opportunity to learn something you didn't know before is what school is all about.
It should be an amazing, fantastic and indulgent thing: a time when you spend several hours of the day just learning stuff. Wow!
It's so sad that so many children come away with the idea that not knowing something is wrong and bad, and you must hide your ignorance if something at all costs, and feel shame at not knowing.
I think you are right, AND I would love to have been taught by people like you.

[thecatfromjapan]

Sassh - yes! That was on my maths paper. It was one of the questions I chose on the long paper.
I have thought for ages that I hallucinated it's being there. AND it was a very easy sort of integration. I have wondered if I was going mad!

[ChippingInAutumnLover]

Merly. Did you send both lots of markings back to the head of department with a . I would have. 9yo would have answered 'No, it's no correct, she could have paid in lots of different ways [then listed them all]'.

[FunkyBoldRibena]

Merly - did the teacher explain their marking?

I think you should show them the two markings and ask for their explanation.

Write a letter to the teacher and the head with the problem... 'Two twins provide the same answer to a maths question. One is marked incorrectly and one is marked correctly. Is this correct. Explain'.

[MERLYPUSSEDOFF]

Help me with this one then.
Last weeks maths said ''Betty buys a ball for 12p, she says she can only use 2 coins to pay. Is this correct? Explain''
We said incorrect as she could pay in any combination of coins to make 12p. It was marked wrong.
Surely the question should've been written ''Betty buys a ball for 12p. She says she could pay using only two coins. Is this correct? ''
Any ideas?
(to make matters worse, DT1 was marked correctly, DT2, different class, wrong)

[sashh]

DadDadDad

Integration was on some of the old O Level papers. Fairly simple find the are under a curve not integration of sine or any thing more substantial.

[MillionToOneChances]

That's pretty hopeless. Takes blinking ages to laminate stuff, too - worth taking care!

[Stealthpolarbear]

I don't understand how they could make such bad mistakes!

[MammaTJ]

4x1=1. 4x2=2. 5x2=40. 8x12=896

I sent it back with corrections in sharpie! New ones got printed! I know we all make mistakes, but to go as far as laminating them is a bit daft.

[bigdreadiedad]

AYBU? No way José.

It's UR that anyone with such a pitiful grasp of numbers should pretend to teach maths.

[Thumbwitch]

Yeah, straight typo - 8 and 9 next to each other on the keyboard - but it should have been noticed.