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.

[MillionToOneChances]

Very true, much appreciated. And DS will like that, too.

[DadDadDad]

Can your DS think of a number which has a square root that is bigger than that number?

[MillionToOneChances]

Bigger than 36?

[DadDadDad]

No, forget about 36 for my problem. You need to come up with a number whose square root is bigger than the number you have just thought of.

So if you think of 16: (positive) square root is 4 - no good because 4 is not bigger than 16.

Think of 2: square root is 1.41... - no good because 1.41 is not bigger than 2.

[MillionToOneChances]

.05 (and a very happy boy, thank you)

[thatsn0tmyname]

It was probably being marked at 10.30pm at night. Not an excuse but teachers are human.

[Caboodle]

Sorry but I'm a teacher and this just isn't on. YANBU.

[DadDadDad]

0.05 I can accept. The fraction 4/9 is my answer - it has a square root of 2/3. Here's a visual demonstration.

1/3..
1/3..
1/3..
........1/3..1/3..1/3

4/9 of the square is yellow faces. That square of yellow faces is 2/3 by 2/3.

[ArthurShappey]

We are all aware that people can make mistakes, but to make frequent mistakes that will impact on the education of the children needs addressing. You need to persuade your son that he can question his teachers, if he thinks they're wrong he can say, or he can ask him/her to explain where they got their answer because that's not the answer he has.

[LeBearPolar]

The mistake was not made at 10.30 pm though; it was made during the lesson as far as I can see...

[DamselNotInHerDress]

Yanbu. Yes teachers are humans not robots and are as capable of making simple errors as much as the rest of us.
However, you say this is happening more than occasionally and is starting to impact on your ds.
Being told that your work is wrong when it's right isn't the end of the world, but to many people, not just children, it can be very frustrating and embarrassing. You don't want him to lose all interest because he start to feel apathetic about doing his work.
I'm not sure what I would do though. I wouldn't want to make a scene as I'm sure it's an oversight but it's not on for this not to be a rarity.

[Whatisaweekend]

I get the impression, from your posts, that this is a bit of a recurring theme in the maths teaching in your DS's school. Is that correct? If yes, then I would be making an appointment with the head of year or even the head in which I would question the quality of the teaching and stressing how this is making your son lose faith.

[WallBox]

This is not a mistake, this is not due to tiredness, this is someone who doesn't understand the basics, as LeBear said earlier.

If no one acts, then children are being taught rubbish.

[MillionToOneChances]

Wallbox that's exactly my concern. I'm already on it, but just wanted to check I wouldn't be totally unreasonable to mention this and various other examples when talking about why my DS feels he isn't learning anything in school.

daddad Maths boy tells me it's true for all decimals between 0 and 1. He'll check that eventually.

[MillionToOneChances]

whatis yes, exactly how I'm currently feeling. Lack of differentiation is one thing, this is quite another. Though it's primary so no head of year, and I suspect the maths coordinator might be a little defensive.

[WallBox]

Thing is OP, you only know about the maths issues because of your son's aptitude for this subject.

What is he being taught in other subjects that is incorrect?

[Bulbasaur]

People are far more tolerant of teachers' mistakes than those in other professions, I find, even those less well paid.

Not true.

When someone in a meeting messes up on a presentation or says something silly, people let it go and judge based on performance. If I were judged on how many times I mixed up terms and numbers during company meetings, I'd be fired. I've also accidentally deleted whole directories and caused a couple hours of IT time. Not one is above mistakes. As it is, I'm fantastic at my job so my bosses never judge me based on trivial slip ups.

Difference is that unfortunately, teacher performance is based on student performance. So when a teacher slips up and says something silly, it effects learning. But if she's generally a good teacher, then let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

You want the blunt truth, teacher's slipping up doesn't cost time and money on the parents or other teachers unless it's monumental. If a stock broker slipped up on a number he'd be crucified for it. So people are tolerant of mistakes that don't affect the bottom line or waste time.

[MillionToOneChances]

Bulbasaur I totally take your point. In my opinion, though (and that of many teachers I know) a good teacher sets work at an appropriate level. In answer to wallbox's question, they're not teaching him much of anything at the moment. Repeating topics in various subjects. The school is going through a rough time. I'm sympathetic but my child is miserable.

[Itsfab]

My child had some sums marked wrong so she went to ask what the answer was. The teacher asked my child to explain why they thought they were right. Turns out DC was right and all the text books had to be changed.

This week a different dc had a spelling marked wrong and the teacher rewrote it. DC was right. The correct spelling was also printed on the sheet twice. The teacher is not yet qualified. The Head was fine when I told her and said she would sort it.

Teachers are human but they need to be sure they are teaching our children the correct answers.

[RevoltingPeasant]

OP YANBU and I work in education.

Not maths, I hasten to add! But if my classes contained wrong nuggets of information, repeatedly, then yes, I'd expect to be pulled up on it.

Sometimes I do get things wrong. When I discover that, I apologise to the student in question and clarify things for the group. But it's only ever rarely as I know my subject.

This is problematic. Actually not for your DS, as he knows better. He'll be fine. But for the other 24 children in the classroom who don't have his aptitude and are diligently copying down wrong answers in their books.

I wonder if we'd be so flippant if this was any other subject than maths? Because maths is hard right, so a mistake is understandable. If a history teacher said the Great Famine in Ireland happened in the 1940s would we all be good with that? I'm guessing not.........

[HopeClearwater]

Did you say primary maths co-ordinator? They're often not that good at secondary school type maths, certainly not things like square roots. A lot of primary teachers struggle to teach at level 5. The maths test you have to pass to qualify to be a primary teacher is pathetically easy and you can retake it until you pass. You only have to get a majority of the questions correct (not all) and there is a bank of only sixty questions - if you take the test seven times, you'll see some of the questions more than once.
I worked with a maths co-ordinator who couldn't do multiplication...
Write out the answer in the margin, with the working.

[TOADfan]

Firstly YANBU.

Secondly you have one smart son. I don't even know what a cubed/square number is!

[Marcipex]

I once corrected a maths teacher.

Well, not at first, at first I assumed my DS must have got it wrong.

When it was clear it was the teacher who couldn't multiply, I tried to minimise what I could see was not going to end well.
It was no good anyway. She argued and argued. So I left it, just showed DS how to multiply.

She sulked for the rest of the year. DS also had to sit through her announcing to the class ' Minimarcs mother thinks she knows everything, but she doesnt.'

I know more than she does, not that that's saying a lot.

So good luck, it's probably not going to go well.

[Marcipex]

HopeClearwater, that is what I did, wrote the correct answer and working in the margin.

She came out of school at the end of the day to harangue me in the playground! And escalated it from there.

[MillionToOneChances]

To be honest, at this point I'm considering home educating. He's having a really rough time at the moment. He's currently crying because he's working on learning a presentation, but they still haven't listened to the poem he was asked to memorise over half term. I'm all for teachers, lots of my friends and relatives are teachers, but the school is verging on special measures and it's failing my child