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.

I would assume it is supposed to be controversial so they all remember it.

It's an opinion, as proven by the fact that in many countries girls don't have that freedom. However I agree it was a poor choice of example by the teacher. It would have been better to balance it with a fact like "there is no significant difference in the brains of males and females", to avoid it looking as if she was minimising the issue of women's equality by relegating it to "opinion".

It's an opinion.
Your dd needs to look at things objectively.
She's upset because she has a different opinion. She doesn't have a different fact.
And there you have it. Opinion.

Scientifically it is an opinion. A good teaching point that things we may god as gospel have not always been regarded so and may not always be in the future.

A lesson too for your daughter that not everyone holds the same truths to be self-evident, and in making a persuasive argument.

No female of child baring age is allowed by law to work at or around a nuclear reactor nor are they allowed on British naval submarines (diesel subs due to hygiene and nuc's due to the reactor).
I am sure that there are other jobs that women/girls can't do so the teacher is correct.

Of course its opinion. It cannot be proved by experiment that can be replicated. (It's also not, in my opinion, right that girls should be able to do any job they want, any more than boys should. Sex exemptions for some roles are valid.)

She should be writing a letter of apology not complaint.

It is an opinion. I share that opinion but that doesn’t make it fact.

He probably chose it on purpose to engage the kids and knowing it was likely to provoke a discussion on fact/opinion.
It hardly warrants a complaint. Poor teachers are already having a really hard time at the moment.

Of course its opinion. It cannot be proved by experiment that can be replicated. (It's also not, in my opinion, right that girls should be able to do any job they want, any more than boys should. Sex exemptions for some roles are valid.)

She should be writing a letter of apology not complaint.

Yes it's a poor example and the teacher should know better, but from a science perspective it is an opinion and not a fact. As an example it could highlight that just because something is morally right or everyone believes it (or should) still doesn't make it a scientific fact. But you're right that it's a dumb move.

This ^

Whereas I totally agree that all of us should be able to work in any area they choose - it isn't something I could prove. It is opinion based on my culture, education and upbringing.
The teacher is actually right to use is to get the pupils to understand that. It is easy to divide 'fact' or 'opinion' if you use all questions as per your example. The point of the lesson, I presume was to show the pupils that just because many of us truely believe something ought to be so, that doesn't make it a scientific fact.

I would also argue that the blood tests don’t necessarily show the patient died of a bacterial infection, they show the patient had a bacterial infection. A blood sample alone doesn’t prove they didn’t have their head chopped off whilst they had the infection.

DD is definitely being immature and over dramatic. The statement is not a scientific fact and that is the whole point of the exercise.

@Cabinfever10 this is incorrect.

Ironically my DH and DD’s dad is currently serving on a V class submarine and I can tell you there are most definitely female ratings and officers as part of the crew.

There are only a few stag boats left and this is mainly due to space (separate toilet blocks/cabins etc) and a good thing it is too.

It is an OPINION, a POINT OF VIEW.

Your daughter is being unreasonable. Tell her so.

It isn't a good example. Saying anyone can win an Olympic medal. Is that opinion or fact.

It IS an opinion. If you reverse the sexes i.e. 'boys should be able to work in any field they choose', it may perhaps be more clear to you.

Plus, there are some, very few protected jobs i.e. you are allowed to advertise for a male PE teacher or a female domestic abuse refuge centre which makes it even more clear.

It's a badly planned lesson.

TBH it also makes me uneasy when scientists teach things as 'facts' when it's quite possible they could be wrong. It wouldn't be an enormous surprise if we found out we'd slightly mis-calculated the distance to the sun. That sort of thing happens. It's taught as 'fact' because, to the best of our knowledge and measuring ability, it's true.

But ... y'know, once upon a time Pluto was a planet. Then it wasn't. Then it was.

Nothing changed about Pluto and nothing much changed about our understanding of Pluto, but the way we described that object changed.

A teacher could easily have had 'Pluto is a planet' as a 'fact' in my science classes in 1989.

We need to be more cautious about our own capacity to disprove things we thought were true. We used to think women were factually, biologically, inferior to men. Science moves on.

Is it wrong that I thought that this might be a good example for this exercise?

I agree that women can do anything a man can do work wise. However, this is a great practical example of how much proof would we need to make something into a fact? What data could we collect toll given we have finite time and we cannot measure all occurrences of women and men doing jobs. What would be the ethics of such monitoring and how could our observations interfere with the data. Could be quite interesting.

Thanks everyone, I like the scientific take on it, not all facts will be liked and I have relayed that back to her as have I said that the reason it has got her back up so much is her opinion of choice of words abs think that made her think about it a bit more.

I do think there were easier less personal examples to use in a world where are trying to bring our girls/children up to believe they can succeed at anything they put their minds too and inequality is a thing of the past.

The teacher is correct- pity she didn't use both shall and can in 2 separate sentences- would have made it clearer and been useful. Perhaps your daughter could point this out..

It's a BRILLIANT lesson and I think the teacher should be nominated for teacher of the year.

She has also highlighted the bias on MN that so many people keep referring to the teacher at male.

I'm sure the teacher did it on purpose for exactly this kind of discussion and to make the pupils think.

I won’t be telling my daughters she’s wrong, she’s 14 with a strong mind which I love and would never try to put her down make her feel like her opinions were irrelevant. I will however use it a point of conversation and discuss it further with her and there have been some excellent suggestions of how to do so on here so thank you.

YABU debating is a good thing in any case

But we're not talking about philosophy here and in this only just post Trump era distinguishing between fact and opinion is actually quite important.

The OP and her child does need to look at the dictionary definitions.

It is GENERALLY accepted that a table has 4 legs and that is a FACT. That there may be tables where a leg has dropped off, does not make it any less than a fact.

The idea that my table is nice is clearly an opinion.

What makes this even more clear is that 100 years ago it was believed that women could NOT do anything they wanted so v clearly it is an opinion.

Whereas 100 years ago and in America as well as China a table has 4 legs.