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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

208 replies

pofacedandproud · 13/10/2009 16:16

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.

OP posts:
tootyflooty · 14/10/2009 13:41

I call a spider an insect or a bug !!!, but I do know that a tomato is a fruit. :0

doubleexpresso · 14/10/2009 13:47

Threads like this one are brilliant. So entertaining. I lurve Mumsnet!

UndomesticHousewife · 14/10/2009 13:51

Cucumbers are also fruit, like tomatoes. I learnt that from Nick Jr

CyradisTheSeer · 14/10/2009 13:58

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

eyetunes · 14/10/2009 14:00

would have called it an insect too.

wheresmypaddle · 14/10/2009 14:02

Wow 7 pages already - my take is that its fine for a child in reception but not for a GCSE biology class. So maybe you are being a little unreasonable.

MiniMarmite · 14/10/2009 14:05

Only read pages 1 and 7 but I am with Pofaced on this one . Fine to call it a blanket name but not a wrong one IMO.

Original poster
pofacedandproud · 14/10/2009 14:06

but the point is not that it is 'fine for a child in reception' the point is that the teacher gave misinformation. why have to unlearn stuff when it is easier to just learn the right stuff when it comes up?

OP posts:
edam · 14/10/2009 14:24

It's not fine for a child in reception because as a reception teacher on this thread has pointed out, grouping and classifying is an important part of the curriculum at this stage.

AND it's not on for teachers to teach things that are untrue, anyway. There's no grey areas here, the teacher is plain wrong.

Mind you, you can get these things a little out of perspective. My mother still occasionally brings up the mad headmaster at my infant school, who apparently didn't know some essential fact about dinosaurs that I had to explain to him (no idea what it was, eyes tend to glaze over when she tells this story).

(Mad as in many instances of odd behaviour - apparently my first teacher had a 'nervous breakdown' thanks to him.)

edam · 14/10/2009 14:25

(and not due to me, no sirree not at all, my mother assures me!)

luckyblackcat · 14/10/2009 14:41

Akshully, I believe a bug has different mouthparts.

MillyR · 14/10/2009 14:41

I think children can cope with teachers getting things wrong.

I was taught in biology at secondary school:

Plants are all green except for mushrooms.

The principles of Lamarckian inheritance instead of Darwinian evolution.

I realised mistakes were being made and read up on some biology in text books. That's life; people are human and make mistakes. What concerns me is not that mistakes are made, but the attitude that it doesn't really matter what children are being told.

Someone on here recently was asking about the correctness of their child being told the Jewish holy book was called a bible. Nobody came on the thread and said that it really didn't matter what you called it. But when it comes to Science, lots of people are prepared to take that attitude. I do find that worrying and hope that those people are not teachers, because I don't want my children picking up the attitude that Science is some kind of trivial, nitpicking irrelevance that normal people don't need to worry about or involve themselves in.

wheresmypaddle · 14/10/2009 15:37

Sorry I have caused offence by my comment that is was OK for a child in reception to be told this. Just wanted to set record straight that I loved science at school & have a bioscience degree- so I honestly do not feel science is any kind of irrelevance.

I don't remember being made aware of the different classifications until I reached a GCSE level and didn't have any poblem learning that there was more to this then I had previously understood- but things have obviously moved on considerably since then......

GibbonWithAnAppleBobbingBibOn · 14/10/2009 15:44

'I don't remember being made aware of the different classifications until I reached a GCSE level and didn't have any poblem learning that there was more to this then I had previously understood- but things have obviously moved on considerably since then...... '

ditto wheresmypaddle

mummyloveslucy · 14/10/2009 15:52

Now that's just silly!

wheresmypaddle · 14/10/2009 15:52

sorry in a rush - poblem = problem, then = than

stillstanding · 14/10/2009 16:08

I think my classifications are still a little blurry, wheresmypaddle!

Will print off the earlier venn diagram re fruits and veg but if anyone has anything useful that can fit on the fridge re animal classifications would be much obliged ...

TheDevilEatsBabies · 14/10/2009 16:14

I've just looked in a number of children's books on the subject, and to throw another spanner into the works of ye who think that bugs is another term for mini-beast or creepy-crawly, you are wrong

a bug is a sub-class of insect.
so spiders cannot be bugs either.
so nur.

DownyEmerald · 14/10/2009 16:27

Enjoying this - finding out who the other biologists are!

It is a small thing as OP said, but it would annoy me too. But I am a pedant (about things I know about).

DD is 3 so not there yet, but I did become dimly aware the other day there are whole areas of biology that I didn't do til A-level (didn't do O-level) that kids now do in primary school.

And I think that's great. I remember my A-level tutor telling me that the Krebs cycle was all fantastically new when she was at Uni and still being worked out by staff there; we did it at O-level; DD'll prob do it in reception class! Knowledge is like that.

I quite like 'mini-beasts' - it is better than using 'invertebrates' in pond-dipping say because it covers the newts etc.

VulpusinaWilfsuit · 14/10/2009 16:30

I was more of a physics girl, meself. I correct a 10 yo pal of DS' yesterday on his incorrect interpretation of sub-atomic particles.

No. Really.

VulpusinaWilfsuit · 14/10/2009 16:31

Corrected

TheDevilEatsBabies · 14/10/2009 16:37

i'm just a pedant, full-stop.

i love watching QI, then i get annoyed because it's too pedantic and sometimes what you know is fine!
(as long as not wrong - it's okay to add sub-classes, but not to use the wrong sub-class!)

berry, if you please.

HowlingAtTheMoon · 14/10/2009 16:48

Good Lord, I only clicked on this thread to see how such a title could raise 173 posts and I am still not sure!

Just to chuck my oar in, I believe that any food with seeds that grows above ground and the plant flowers is considered a fruit? My DS came home with a book from school libarary in Reception all about fruits and vegetables and it taught me a thing or two!

edam · 14/10/2009 21:25

Downy, does that mean you'd be impressed if I mentioned I'd met John Krebs quite a few times? (Believe it was his Dad who came up with the Krebs cycle?)

stillstanding · 14/10/2009 22:36

Well, I for one and very impressed.

[Goes off to google Krebs cycle]