DD’s science teacher AIBU

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Dd14 is quite an opinionated teen and has become very sensitive to even a sniff of inequality. I think it’s quite cool that she has strong beliefs but do sometimes have to tell her her to rein it in a bit..

She came down from Google classroom tonight on a fowl mood and announced that she was drafting a complaint letter to her science teacher due to an argument they had over an exercise in class...

The exercise was dividing statements into fact and opinion, ie FACT on average the sun is 150 million miles from the sun. OPINION pineapple taste good on pizza...

The final one was girls should be able to work in any area they choose which I’m sure you have guess the teacher was adamant was opinion and if had been marked down on the sheet as such...

I personally think this is less about being opinion or fact statement and more to do with it being a poor choice of example in a class of predominantly strong minded young girls but DD is very upset and angry at her teacher.

Is she being a bit immature and dramatic or does she have a point...

I’ll include the work sheet in next post.

@partyatthepalace

Thank you and that was exactly what I meant by not shouting DD down and telling her she was wrong but opening up a discussion about what she considered quite a sensitive and emotive subject and discussing...

There is more than one way of encouraging a person and in particular a hot headed teen to reflect on something and realise it wasn’t correct.

Even then you could change the "girls" (ick) to "boys"

What’s “ick” about the word girls that isn’t “ick” about the word boys?

Re:

You could change the "girls" (ick) to "boys" and it would be just as valid as a question and more interesting to debate.

and

Girls should be able to work in any area they choose.

If you changed the statement to "Boys should be able to work in area they choose" do people feel that this is an opinion or a fact?

If the "girls..." statement is a fact, then surely the "boys..." statement is a fact too. But that means males are entitled to work in women's refuges and other safe spaces in any role they choose. Males are entitled to work with the most vulnerable women. By definition women don't have the right to decline a male gynaecologist because if all women did so it would be denying the right of the man to work in the area they have chosen. (Can't really practice gynaecology on men.)

I think the "boys..." statement must be an opinion, and therefore the "girls..." statement is an opinion too.

(OP: your daughter would be better focusing her anger on positive change by the way. Complaining and moaning is usually less effective than explaining and convincing people.)

If the teacher really wants to cover this in a science lesson, talking about physical differences and (small) population vs (potentially large) individual variation would be a much better way to approach it.

Not if she was trying to teach the difference between fact and opinion.

The teacher is right and your dd wrong (and needs to know it).

But I think I agree with pp who've said that, especially if it is a mixed school, choosing this example is just one more 'drip' in young people's continuing experience of little hints that there might continue to be important differences in the rights and opportunities available to boys and girls. That 'drip drip' effect can erode girls' confidence that the world is open to them and embolden boys' belief that it is theirs.

But, in choosing to believe that any 'should' she agrees with equates to a fact, your dd is blundering blindly and arrogantly into a Trumpian world of fake news and alternative facts.

Everyone believes they are right. Not everyone is in possession of facts, or the ability to discern the difference between facts, evidence and opinion. Your dd is being given the opportunity to become better educated and more capable at assessing evidence than Trump (and the left's equal and opposite proponents of fake news and puffed up opinion). I'd suggest she takes it, rather than fighting the people offering that education.

Thank you and that was exactly what I meant by not shouting DD down and telling her she was wrong but opening up a discussion about what she considered quite a sensitive and emotive subject and discussing...

But she was wrong, the statement is an opinion, not a fact. Which was the point of the lesson.

Get her to join Amnesty International and she can use her letter writing skills to an end that actually matters. Honestly, lack of perspective, massive over sensitivity and, frankly, bullying attitudes. I back the teacher 100% and my heart sinks for the interfering parents who think they know better than trained professionals

@Jellycatspyjamas

Thank you and that was exactly what I meant by not shouting DD down and telling her she was wrong but opening up a discussion about what she considered quite a sensitive and emotive subject and discussing...

But she was wrong, the statement is an opinion, not a fact. Which was the point of the lesson.

Hopefully the teacher won't linger on the fact that the dd is "wrong", but will debate it.

Picking an example like that and then enjoying telling annoyed 14 year old girls that they are wrong about it seems pretty ignorant.

DD needs to climb down off her high horse and accept she is wrong. It is an opinion - one I very, very strongly agree with, but and opinion nevertheless.

Yes, the teacher could have chosen a less contentious issue - but is that what we really want for our children? To only ever consider the bland, the mundane, the obvious?

Brave move on the teacher's part - to challenge her students at this very exhausting time of the year.

Your dd is learning a valuable lesson. It is right and proper to know your own mind, but also we have (sadly) realise that the world does not always agree with us.

The teacher is right. It is an opinion and some people do oppose it. It’s a useful lesson in thinking, not just reacting.

Your daughter totally missed the point of the lesson! This was not religious studies or home economics. It was a science class.

The teacher wanted the kids to appreciate that science is about facts and research methods.

She used a controversial example to show that even the closest statement to bring a fact, they remain an opinion from a science perspective because they can't be quantified.

I back the teacher 100% and my heart sinks for the interfering parents who think they know better than trained professionals

That's actually quite laughable when it's a low quality, badly thought out worksheet.

I thought Mumsnet was behind parents driving up standards in schools? That's certainly the argument trotted out for abolishing private schools, all those clever middle class parents driving up standards?

I can say with confidence that my dds school would not have given out this worksheet for year 9 or 10 science - thank goodness!

Picking an example like that and then enjoying telling annoyed 14 year old girls that they are wrong about it seems pretty ignorant.

What makes you think she enjoyed telling the girl she was wrong, rather than her doing her job in educating children about the difference between fact and opinion?

I mean, you could get really specific about what is meant by a "mile". The modern standard measurement is not what it always has been, so you could argue that the statement "a mile can only be defined as 1/150000000 of the average distance of the earth from the sun" is an opinion...

Maybe wrote a letter to her English teacher that she can't identify fact from opinion!

It's good that she is standing up for women's rights but ignorant if she can't work out that it's an opinion. I bet he put that on there to fool them.

Because posters on here have positively revelled in it. Hopefully the teacher is more emotionally intelligent.

It is technically an opinion, because the reality is that women historically haven't been able to do any sort of work they want to do. Case in point that the US has just sworn in the first ever woman vice president in nearly 300 years (and never had a woman as president). But on the teacher's part, it is is an inappropriate example unless she was using it as a form of critique. That is, if they then had a discussion to pull apart the nature of inequality in opportunities and life chances for women. I do think that it warrants a letter from your daughter and I don't think she is being melodramatic at all (I say this as someone who teaches!). A teacher should be a bit more clued in to the messages her words are sending if she isn't going to pick apart the lessons she's providing with students a bit more. It sounds like a great exercise in critical thinking for students that age, but hopefully she took it that far and did it the right way.

@wildraisins

Surely it's obvious that when the worksheet was originally made (in the 1960's probably!), the intended answer was "opinion" and it was meant to be very straightforward.

It's not straightforward anymore, and the fact that it is now resulting in these debates and upset teenagers shows how outdated it is and it needs to be changed.

The teacher has clearly been thoughtless/ lazy here and this worksheet hasn't been updated in decades.

You are amazingly wrong on this. I know you are exaggerating but we didn't have printed worksheets in the 60s. 70s either for that matter. No photocopiers, most people did not have a computer in the classroom when I started teaching in the 90s. There's also nothing "wrong" about the answers in that one statement is factual and the other opinion. Puppies shouldn't be tortured is an opinion, as disgusting as it would be to suggest that was morally acceptable.

I imagine that the female science teacher who taught the lesson has come across the odd bit of misogyny herself in choosing to study a science subject at university.

So the teacher is trying to put an important distinction across. By using an example that your DD feels strongly about for very good ethical reasons, the teacher is showing that strong feelings and valid ethical positions don't create objective testable facts.

Exactly. It's an excellent choice of question because the distinction between fact and opinion is most likely to be lost when we feel strongly about something.

@dontdisturbmenow

Your daughter totally missed the point of the lesson! This was not religious studies or home economics. It was a science class.

The teacher wanted the kids to appreciate that science is about facts and research methods.

She used a controversial example to show that even the closest statement to bring a fact, they remain an opinion from a science perspective because they can't be quantified.

This, 100%. Of course it's an opinion.

Op you say you are glad that your dd is opinionated and strong minded? you need to make sure you - and she - understand the fine line between being opinionated and narrow minded. Being narrow minded is a form of ignorance.

Clearly the teacher was trying to illustrate the ways in which fact/opinion isn't merely a scientific issue but filters through to other areas of life and society. Your dd failed to grasp this.

Lastly, please ensure you understand the difference between 'fowl' and 'foul'. They have entirely different meanings. And that is a FACT.

There is more than one way of encouraging a person and in particular a hot headed teen to reflect on something and realise it wasn’t correct.

Absolutely. Is she really incorrect though?

OK, the statement obviously isn't a fact. Semantically and grammatically, it is an opinion. We all know that's the answer to the question - but that's not really the point, is it?

The point is the context in which this question was asked was not appropriate. Your daughter reacted this way because she was asked the question in a context where she was supposed to give a simple answer - fact or opinion. But it's not a simple answer. It's a question that needs a lot of discussion and debate - and that's why it should have been asked in PSHE or English, not Science.

I appreciate that Science does require discussion and debate, but I don't think that the teacher was planning the lesson to be a debate about sexism and misogyny. Those are complex subjects and needs a lot more time and space than a science teacher would have been planning to spend on this activity with a group of year 9/10 students. So, by bringing up this topic in this context, the teacher essentially restricted your daughter's ability to express herself. That led to your daughter feeling frustrated and misunderstood.

Your daughter was put in a position she shouldn't have been put in. She was presented with an outdated view by a thoughtless teacher and so wasn't given the adequate space to respond to it. That is poor teaching.

I really don't think your daughter should be told that she's wrong and I actually think it's great that she is so opinionated. "Woke" has become almost an insult, but actually your daughter is driving the values that we need all should be heading towards as a society! That's exciting and brilliant - encourage and nurture that side of her.

What's actually underneath it all is that this shouldn't have come up in her science lesson - and that's valid.

So in my opinion, the teacher deserves a bit of a hard time for this, and if I were you I would just let your daughter complain and voice her opinion however she sees fit!

But even more pedantically, I think the "should" in that statement actually implies it is an opinion rather than a fact. Science as a rule does not deal with what "should" happen but what is. You could also say that "due to the combined forces of gravity and air resistance the pencil will take x miliseconds to reach the floor". But I would expect it to say "will" rather than "should", although you might want to add "within a controlled environment". Saying "the pencil should be dropped on the floor" implies you want it to happen = opinion.

The teacher appears to have been very successful as now her lesson has generated discussion on here.

I’m tempted to say that it appears that in some people’s opinion it’s opinion, and in other people’s opinion it’s fact.

Of course, in fact, it’s opinion .

The final one was girls should be able to work in any area they choose

I think the words ‘should be’ is what makes it an opinion and if you replaced that with the word ‘are’ it would be a fact.

Would that make your daughter feel less like this is some kind of implication that girls cannot factually work in any area they choose?

Another way of putting it is that it is a fact that girls can work in any area they choose and it is also my opinion that they should be able to work in any area that they choose.

In recognising, differentiating and stating facts and opinions wording is important and this might be what the teacher is highlighting here. Also, examining facts requires objectivity which means putting your personal feelings and opinions aside. This provocative statement gives an opportunity to the students to put their personal feelings aside and practice being objective.

@Frodont

Its like you all want to be spoon-fed woke opinions only

It's not a "woke opinion" to understand that girls can do any job they choose. What a revolting statement.

I’m afraid you’re incorrect. They key word that you’ve used that makes this untrue is ‘can’ If a girl has 2 left feet they’ll never be a professional footballer. They’ll never be a Catholic priest. Or Pope. Or a mental health nurse on a male sex segregated ward where sex exemptions apply. They cannot inherit certain titles from their fathers.

Read this article, it’ll open your eyes as to what jobs girls can and cannot do.

www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/7-sexist-laws-prevent-women-dangerousjobs/