to be annoyed that ds's teacher told him a spider is an insect?

[pofacedandproud]

Ok ds is in reception, but still. I have always told him a spider is not an insect but an arachnid, insects have 6 legs, etc, but today he came home and said 'Mrs X told me that I could bring a spider to school as the letter this week is I for insect'

I asked him if she really suggested a spider for 'I'. And he was very sure she had. So I told him again a spider was an arachnid. I know it is a small thing but it does annoy me, her telling them that. Yes I know she does an amazing job with 30 children, and she is great, but still.

Thanks for the cucumber info, you live and learn

I remember telling my know-it-all sister that the earth was not round but elliptical. God she was angry.

Getting fruit and veg confused is not such a big deal because they are similar categories. It is not analagous to saying a spider is an insect.

Saying a spider is an insect is analagous to:

A dog is a kind of fish.

A whale is a kind of bird.

A human is a kind of amphibian.

My DS did have to learn about different classes within the animal kingdom at a state primary school. I would expect a primary school teacher to know that a spider is not an insect. Even a totally uneducated person should be able to see from their own observations that a spider looks nothing like an insect.

well, no
because to most people the word insect means "something black which scuttles in a creepy kind of way"
spiders and insects aren't really worlds apart
just as fruit and veg aren't

but it is like calling a whale a fish. 'well they both swim in the sea so you can excuse the confusion' Er, no, not really.

Tomatoes are used in culinary terms as a vegetable. But botanically they are a fruit. As I have told ds [wonders how tomato tangent developed a life of its own]

Don't Worry too much, you can come around and vent spleen at my Dinner Party on Friday night. I am serving Coq in Pot along with other Fowl dishes. The Vicar is coming too and we can play 3into1 after the petis fours. Should be a blast and will be guaranteed to take your mind off the whole sorry business. 7.30 for 8.00 smart casual RSVP Bring your EMLA cream you might need it later!

To shamelessly copy and paste an earlier poster:
Wrong, many many main courses contain fruit.
Pork and apricot.
Pork and apple.
Duck a l'orange
Moroccan dishes often use fruit.
Indian dishes often use fruit.
And so on.

Fruit and vegetables are not specifically for one course or the other.
Also, whales /fish is a similar thing. Not that massively far away from each other.

No, I'm a teacher and this sort of thing annoys me hugely.
I'd send him in with his bug book so that he can point out that a spider isn't an insect.
She'' remember it for the rest of her teaching career.

I don't think most people do think of insects as black things which scuttle. Honey bees don't scuttle, or butterflies, or stick insects. Insects aren't really associated with being black either.

It is quite easy to tell animals apart and catergorise them correctly, even if you have no scientific training, because animals are classified based on their morphology. The same is not true of plants, which are classified by method of reproduction and other features which are not immediately observable.

I think a lot of people in Britain revel in their own ignorance of the natural world. It is hardly elitist and hard to access; it is staring people in the face.

She'll remember it, no idea why there are free-range speech marks invading my post.

Most animals live in the sea; land animals are a minority. There are lots of kinds of animals in the sea that are not fish.

In my day, clever Gels did Latin.
Not typing

So now I'm stuffed when it comes to IT.

whatever he's taught wrong now he will have trouble correcting it in his head later.

And how are veg and fruit similar categories? They're so not

gerontius you are being shamelessly provocative with your 'whales are close enough to fish' argument.

To help you out here is a fruit and here is a vegetable.

"whatever he's taught wrong now he will have trouble correcting it in his head later"

Wish someone had told my A'level Biology teacher that! 1st day -
"remember everything you learnt for your GCSE's?"
"yes sir"
"well forget it. It was all wrong!!"

It could be worse - you should hear my rants when someone calls a chimp/gorilla/orang a monkey.
American TV is a heinous criminal for this 'ooh look at the monkey'

Me: IT'S A FECKING APE YOU FECKING MORON!!!!!

DH shakes his head pitying me

As I was just saying, Iklboo.

I agree about insects and arachnids. Just checked that DS (5) knew spiders weren't insects. He did .

I am however ashamed to not know the difference between monkeys, chimpanzees, gorillas etc

I agree with the A Levels thing (although in my case it was Chemistry). And then when you go and do a degree in the subject it is even worse.

Distant cousins - different branches of the evolutionary tree. Chimps, gorillas, orangutans are all apes.

(and so are we!)

Tomatoes, while obviously a fruit, can also be classified under vegetable, as fruits are technically sub-classes of the term vegetable, as in vegetable matter. A spider cannot be classified as an insect though, as arachnid and insect are on the same level of the heirarchy.
Its all to do with proto-typical classification systems innit?