Would I be unreasonable to correct the teacher?

[Horthnangerabbey]

It is a minor thing really but if the teacher had told the class something that you knew was wrong, would you tell her? Or would you just explain to your own child the correct info and keep quiet?

Parsley has a great solution I think. Friendly and helpful.

I have marked for a well-known exam board. Context is quite major on the new spec. I wouldn't bat an eyelid if a kid slipped in 'Victorian era' as a phrase BUT it would knock their grade down if they then connected the themes of the book to that time period.

I'd also think they'd got confused with Dickens 😂

As an aside, I wish they'd left Austen to A-Level. Sigh.

I don't think this is minor. I would still speak to the teacher privately as I would hope she would relay the information to the rest of the class. After all she will be judged on their results. I could easily see each child losing a mark if they all write about Jane Austen and Victorian times.

But Ginswinger I'd complain about that, none of this gentle nonsense. We'll end up with an entire generation not knowing where to get their cheddar. That's disgraceful.

Surely you message the whole school WhatsApp / Facebook group? Then discover that the teacher was right and you were wrong....

English teacher here!

That is a major error!!!

Context is marked at GCSE. I'd gently enquire of the teacher....

Copper is a better conductor.

On this occasion, I'd privately correct the teacher, OP as it's obviously a topic they're teaching and it's important to be correct. I'd also be annoyed at incorrect spelling or grammar.

However, just because we are teachers doesn't mean we know everything about everything. I hate this assumption. Of course, most of us check facts before teaching them but sometimes people make genuine mistakes. If a pupil asks me something I don't know, I'm always completely honest and we look it up as a class.

I wish I was one of those parents who had a child that tells them all about what the teachers said. I get nothing. Who knows what he is being told that might be wrong?

Plus I thought it was silver, copper then gold for conductivity, but that isn't what this thread is about.

I am the first to defend fellow teachers but this is a very very big error so I think all fellow teachers on here should stop running around trying to finesse this...

It is sloppy and pretty ignorant. And the teachers credentials would really worry me...

Yes, agreed , teachers don't know everything and don't need to. But a teacher embarking on teaching Jane Austen should bloody well know when she wrote. I agree with a PP (or was it the OP?) that a lot of people think any time a while ago is Victorian. The kids sometimes insist Shakespeare is.

You really don't teach a GCSE set text without mugging up beforehand on stuff like this which an English teacher should know anyway

And there is no quibbling over this, unlike the cooper / gold thing.

The Victorian times were distinctly different from those which preceded them.

I would correct that, yes - it’s at best half a century out!

The only time I've brought this up one to one with a teacher is when a Year 5 Geography homework sheet came home with a map of Europe with national borders outlined, and below a list of country names and colours. The children had to colour the countries in with the appropriate colour. One of them was the Cheque Republic.

Strangely enough I have had the conversation with my daughters about how different cultural periods are named and how some bits can float over actual king and queen names. However I would never refer to Jane Austen's context as anything other than Regency.

I had to, and at primary 2 level. Teacher told DD that she 'jamp out of her skin' when she got a fright one day. I had DD arguing that jamp was a word so had to say something to teacher who actually thought jamp was a word

We've had this one before on MN.

There was a long discussion. Some academic iconoclasts came on and argued vehemently for the concept of a loooong Victorian period (academics do that a lot - it helps to get your book published if you can create a controversial theory).

I think the consensus was that it was very unlikely the CT was aware of the whole "We have always been modern", the deconstruction of historical periodisation debates and deployments of Deleuze's "Joan of Arc effect" within historical research but was, in fact, just kind of wrong.

I'm finding it frankly extraordinary that there might be two English teachers out there teaching this.

Are you absolutely, utterly sure this was said?

Sorry, Pengwynn ,can't possibly agree. You ,a s I said, mug up before you teach anything ESPECIALLY if you feel a bit insecure.

NQTs and trainees teach the same children and those children deserve to be taught correct information as much as the next person.

Can't remember if you are an English teacher or not, but context is not peripheral info : it is core to teaching a text.

I find it a bit unlikely that a non specialist would be teaching Austen.

I do know myself of a few teachers (notably a trainee) who would make this sort of mistake. A trainee should definitely be corrected. That is how they will learn!

Do you suggest they keep bumbling on unchallenged then? Bit confused by that..

Yes, I have learnt lots while teaching , but mainly be making sure I did the legwork beforehand.

Austen is kind of famous!!!

This is not the same as me teaching an obscure author as a Victorian writer and then discovering his very Victorian mystery story was written in 1905. But, regardless, a student corrected me. It was fine with me!

Sparkling

Having a nose in exercise books is helpful when you have a reticent teen

I'm English, we live in Germany, my kids are fully bilingual.

Language teaching is generally good here, but also very inflexible, so DD has endured many boring years of English as a foreign language. Her regular teachers, both young women, have tended to defer to her as the only native English speaker, and have tended to make very few mistakes aside from some odd pronunciation.

However the head of English, an older man, covered their lessons and taught them multiple nonsense words, including insisting that orthodontic braces are called "toothy pecks" in English He also insisted any English not yet covered on the syllabus would be marked incorrect in written work as they couldn't know things they hadn't been taught...

He didn't believe DD was English despite her entire class telling him when he started covering their lessons, so she didn't correct him but did point out his errors to her friends...

She didn't want me to go in and see him, and as he was just covering for the regular teacher I left it. It frustrates me that his subordinates are all teaching correct English but the head of department is teaching nonsense though, and I'm likely to have children at that school for another decade as she has younger siblings. I really hope he's never class teacher for any of my kids as I won't know what to do for the best and it will be very frustrating!

cat sadly I think it is likely.

One of our trainees checked with her mentor as to whether Shakespeare was Victorian. In front of the students...

I have corrected fundamental errors in actual work. I would not correct spelling errors in letters home, or similar.

In year 3 DS had "miniature" in his spellings for the week, except it was spelt miniture. I corrected it for DS assuming a silly typo had been made and he spelt it correctly in his test. It was then marked as incorrect. I did quietly speak to the teacher about that and then found out that several other parents had pointed out the error too.

Same teacher set a project about the Arctic, including advice to include information about penguins. Again I spoke to the teacher.

Same teacher told DS that the Vatican City is not a country.

Same teacher told the class that fires were lit using flint and steel in the Stone Age.

Same teacher asked the class how you could tell a mammal from a reptile and DS answered that they feed their young on milk. She told him he was incorrect and that mammals all give birth to live young (not eggs).

By this point I gave up and just told DS when she had made mistakes. I suppose that each mistake was relatively minor, but cumulatively they left a poor impression of that teacher's abilities.

There is a difference between an error and a mistake. Errors can be overlooked. Mistakes should be corrected. You'd expect the teacher to correct your child's mistakes after all. Lord knows what will happen if your DC writes ' in the regency period in which Austen wrote...'

Surely you want to head that off at the pass?