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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To have written the correct spelling

97 replies

Verbena37 · 15/09/2015 16:16

Where DD's teacher had written her spelling error as category???
DD (13) had written catagory and the teacher had put catergory x 3 in green pen and made DD write it out incorrectly.

I've written sp category in purple felt pen.
I don't think that's unreasonable

OP posts:

PermetsTu · 15/09/2015 19:14

Has she punched you or pulled your hair before? The screaming and violence, are they the way she usually reacts when embarrassed?

catfordbetty · 15/09/2015 19:28

I'm baffled about why people feel they shouldn't point out the mistake.

Eh? The overwhelming majority have said they would. But you're right to be a stickler for accuracy so you won't mind me pointing out that there are a couple of mistakes in your post too.

cocobean2805 · 15/09/2015 20:11

Sorry but also ywnbu. Teachers should be able to spell. I was a TA and it used to do my head in when teachers spelled things incorrectly.

On a side note, my DM (a teacher of 30+ years) will correct my text messages! I even get a *sp when she messages back after my spelling correction. So, for example

Me: I went to the librarry today x
DM: libarry = *sp LIBRARY, full stop. Love Mum x

She's mental, I think it's only me and my Dsis who she corrects though! I am 29, there's no hope.

queenofthepirates · 15/09/2015 20:29

My DC's school sports a sign next to the reception stating 'No assess when children are playing' The head teacher addresses letters 'Dear Parent' then signs off 'Yours sincerely' and barely a letter arrives without at least one mistake in it. I just ignore them and passive aggressively post about them on here instead. I don't want my kid singled out as the one with the weird mum.

Fatmomma99 · 15/09/2015 20:36

Whilst your DD massively over-reacted, and I'm sorry she hurt you, I can absolutely understand her anger.

She's Yr 9, not primary school. If the teacher didn't see the funny side of your correction, who do you think your DD thinks he'll take it out on? My DD is also in year 9, and I would never do anything like this to her, although I may have done when she was in primary - when I was in and out of school the whole time and knew all the teachers.

I think you have disrespected her independence and done it by making a permanent mark on her book. Which SHE is going to have to explain.

wowfudge · 15/09/2015 20:38

What does that mean queen?

I've got a friend who's a teacher and I fear for the pupils when she covers English. Her spelling and grammar are terrible and her views are liberal - it's all about communication rather than accuracy. Grrr. Mind you, my mum was a teacher and the whole family shouts things like, "Different from", at the telly .

sashh · 15/09/2015 20:41

! There's very little excuse for not being able to spell properly if you're a secondary school English/Media teacher.

On eo fmy friends was going to train as an English teacher, she recently captioned a pic of her children on face book as 'were to cute' - I didn't comment but boy did I want to.

Original poster

Verbena37 · 15/09/2015 20:43

I'm kind of realising that fatmomma. It was a spur of the moment thing....because I was so shocked he wouldn't have checked it before writing it out three times incorrectly himself.

As for her book, she has taken a Sharpie to it and crossed over it all.....I told her to say what I'd done "my mum was trying to be funny by correcting your spelling".....then at least he'd know it was wrong

OP posts:

Fatmomma99 · 15/09/2015 21:20

Thank you for not being upset by my comment - was stressing in my head I'd been too aggressive.

herethereandeverywhere · 15/09/2015 22:38

Oh criticise away! I'm a stickler for accuracy and typed it in a hurry - I'm not paid to teach and wasn't setting this as an educational example for anyone.

I'd love to have the time to proofread every post but just don't have time especially when I'm posting whilst in work

LittleRedRidingHoodie1 · 15/09/2015 22:51

I'm just glad there are people in our world like the OP who never make a mistake at work. Unless of course they don't have a highly stressful job or don't work at all...

herethereandeverywhere · 15/09/2015 23:14

But I don't think the OP was saying she never made a mistake at work.

She was saying that when you are correcting a spelling, as a teacher, you need to correct it with the correct spelling. That just cannot be wrong can it?

Original poster

Verbena37 · 15/09/2015 23:19

When I'm adding up a long bill at work, I do it mentally.....but then, because I don't want to undercharge or overcharge people, I quickly double check it on a calculator. It wouldn't have taken the teacher a minute to get a dictionary to check....but then again if he thought it was correct, then he prob didn't think he needed to check it.

OP posts:

MardyBra · 15/09/2015 23:28

" However, 30 odd years as an English teacher ruined my spelling - seeing incorrect spellings every day made me doubt my own sanity as it were!"

MN has done that to me. I never used to have a problem with "lose" and "loose" but I have to think about it now since the post penis beaker dumbing down.

MardyBra · 15/09/2015 23:31

OP, YABU to correct a yr 9's book. Ds pointed out an error in one of his textbooks earlier. We just had a laugh about it. 13 year old kids just want to keep their head down and not be the one with the bolshie parent.

TheExMotherInLaw · 15/09/2015 23:33

I don't mind maths or science teachers who can't spell - it doesn't matter if they're dyslexic as long as they can teach their subject well. However, I do take issue with English teachers miscorrecting a child's spelling. One seemed to have it in for my dyslexic dd in y 4 and would sometimes throw her work in the bin, and make her do extra spellings. Once she gave her a drawing of a flower to copy the labelled parts - petal, leaf, stork...
It was her attitude to dd that tipped me over the edge - I photocopied her end of year report, corrected it in red pen, and sent it in to the headmaster. (yes, I know she'd had 30 of them to write, but I'd had enough of her cold, bullying attitude by then)
Contrast that to her teacher in year 6, who was superb at English, could teach maths well, but was rotten at the actual arithmetic - dd used to correct her, and she'd accept it with a grin - never tried to force her errors on the children.
I think writing in her book was a bad move, for a secondary age child; a note to the teacher would have been better. Teenage egos are delicate snowflakes!

Prelude · 15/09/2015 23:36

I would just like to thank you for typing, "to have wrote WRITTEN the correct spelling"

I'm sat SITTING here very happily because of it

cocobean2805 · 15/09/2015 23:42

Mind you, my mum was a teacher and the whole family shouts things like, "Different from", at the telly

Yesss!! It's not just my family then!

tbtc20 · 16/09/2015 08:05

Verbena I am not a teacher, but I have had my mistakes pointed out to me in front of colleagues in rather an aggressive way by a poor manager.

It just made me very defensive and upset, though I am well able to admit I make mistakes and to learn from them.

wowfudge · 16/09/2015 08:14

coco - I have also educated DP to use 'fewer' rather than less when the context demands. I want to get my red pen out in supermarkets, especially at the express tills...

GoblinLittleOwl · 16/09/2015 08:22

No, it is inexcusable for the teacher to misspell a correction.

hackmum · 16/09/2015 09:00

I think tbtc20 is right. It's not easy being a teacher, and it must be absolutely humiliating to have your mistake pointed out by a parent. So you should do it gently and politely. Even so, as a parent I would feel dismayed by this.

Anyone else old enough to remember Dan Quayle "correcting" a child's spelling of "potato" to "potatoe"?

derxa · 16/09/2015 10:04

Yes hackmum I thought of the Dan Quayle incident immediately.

LittleCandle · 16/09/2015 10:17

More than once, I corrected the spelling mistakes in letters sent home from school and returned them to the office. The school secretary was a very nice woman, but wouldn't have given my dog a run for the money in the brains department. The head was a lazy bastard, more concerned with getting his face in the local newspapers than actually making sure that the school was running properly, and he never bothered to read the letters that were sent home, although a facsimile of his signature was on the bottom of them.

I was not popular, but I didn't care. What kind of example was that to send out? In the end, I removed DD2 from the school and sent her to another and it was amazing the difference. For 2 schools in the same local authority, they were as different as chalk and cheese.

steppemum · 16/09/2015 10:18

'Dear Parent' then signs off 'Yours sincerely'

OK sticking my neck out here, but what is wrong with this?

Don't get me started on fewer and less, I picked ds (12 up in this recently and he looked at me blankly, he had never heard of the difference (apparently) and thought I was being strange!

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