Practise/Practice

[redskyatnight]

DS's weekly spelling sheet reads: "Please encourage your child to practice the spellings listed below".

It's been annoying me every week, but I have said nothing in the hope that it might be corrected on the following week's sheet. I have now come to the conclusion that they must just cut and paste the instruction bit each week. Do I say something to the teacher (and if so how to I phrase it nicely) or will I just come across as smug and annoying?

I don't think it is acceptable for a teacher to say I don't care about the spelling, a context would make it clear. Why bother with any spelling then?

I sent home a series of questions with my year 12 students this week. I put the questions together at midnight having started work at 7am. The questions were badly worded and one was full of typos. I had a complaint, I was mortified and said sorry. I should have checked it in the morning. I did not. I was wrong.

I would do as ZephirineDrouhin suggested - the most important thing is that your DS knows that practice is the noun, practise the verb. Like licence/license. Look it up in the dictionary with him.

So MmeBlueberry, what do you think should be done about a teacher who regularly mis-spells the spellings handed out for the children to learn and corrects spellings that are right?

Yes, sure, she may be dyslexic, but why can't she use a spellcheck before she confuses her pupils by her mis-spellings? And why do the teacher's feelings when her mistake is pointed out matter more than a than the feelings of a child who gets marks knocked off in subsequent spelling tests because Miss taught her wrong?

I am a university teacher, so slightly different, but I am always grateful to students or colleagues who point out any mistakes of mine: I certainly do not see this as an occasion for self pity.

I don't hover over my children's schoolwork to that level of intensity, Cory. In fact, all I do is check their planners daily or weekly, as required.

I certainly wouldn't react to practice/practise, or other common mispellings.

I would have to sit on my hands if there was a misplaced apostrophe, but I would leave it up to the child to sort out.

TBH, I have never come across such errors in either of my children's schools, so it is all hypothetical to me.

But it may not be hypothetical for your pupils' parents as, by your own admission, you may well get this wrong. I doubt you throw the same tantrums when parents correct you.

I am not a tantrummy person, and have never had parents correct me. Pupils might query my deliberate mistakes and inconsistencies, and that is good because it means that they are thinking.

Please find someone else for your target practice, Feenie. You are way off mark with me.

I don't hover over mine either, but I have had dcs asking me for help when teacher corrected a spelling they thought was right (and that was right!) or when they were set spellings to learn that they thought were wrong (and that were wrong!). And during their first years at school, they did both struggle with writing and needed a bit of propping up at homework time, so that's when I got to see their spelling lists. For some reason, one teacher set the spellings for all classes- and that was a teacher who did not know how to spell.

Same with facts set to learn that were incorrect, or projects that could not be done because of misunderstanding on part of teacher. These things happen.

My dcs never had the confidence to question the teacher, as criticising a teacher counted as talking back in their school. I have to admit that I never did say anything about it either. But is very awkward in the early years when children insist that everything that teacher says is right- and then get very upset when they find out it isn't. Fortunately, I come from a teaching family and teach at a different level myself, so I have never found it difficult to encourage a questioning attitude in my children. As in, teachers are human, you have to be kind and polite to them, but you do not have to believe every word they say, you can always double check.

It's a spelling debate, Mme Blueberry. People post and other people answer. You seem to have objected to this from the outset. Maybe time to move threads?

I am surprised there is even a debate on this topic. I might be very old fashioned but I do think that the job of a primary school teacher is first and foremost to forge very solid foundations of literacy (of which spelling, grammar and punctuation are the most important blocks, on which to build creative writing, etc) and numeracy. Hence, in my book, to qualify as a decent primary teacher you need to a) be very good at spelling/grammar, ie be a paragon for children from an early age; and b) be good at teaching those/explaining in different ways to different children, ie transferring that knowledge to others. But if you don't have the knowledge to start with - forget it! Choose a different career. I remember when I was at school (not in UK), it was absolutely unthinkable for a primary teacher to make spelling/grammatical mistakes. Simply unthinkable.

To the OP, I would certainly correct it, and if it were not a one off,I would raise the issue with the headteacher.

I would definitely point it out to the teacher if any of the words in the actual spelling list were wrong, as DCs would lose marks if they spelled it right. Kids at this age have such a well developed sense of justice that they would feel very hard done by if this was not put right.

Depending on the teacher and how much of a sense of humour they have I might point out the "practice/practise" error in a jokey way.

Hope I haven't done too may typos in this, or I will be roasted!

If it is cruel to point out the teacher's mistakes, does that not make it cruel for the teacher to mark the children's work?

Agree about children's sense of justice.

I became sidetracked while surfing and found this thread. Good to see folk discussing such matters. To add my oar?s worth, I think you should tell the teacher, and quickly, as their inevitable embarrassment will be increased each time they have used the word.

But I couldn?t continue with my surfing without commenting on the squabble in this thread. Dyscalculia is the name given to numeracy disorders that are sometimes compared with the literacy disorders that fall under the term dyslexia. A numeracy teacher who writes 12 divided by two as 2 x 21 is not going to be very effective. Cory?s comment above did make me smile but it wasn?t enough to lift this sense of dismay, so I?ve joined the forum.

MmeBlueberry, you should hang your head in shame! Surely, the primary directive of a teacher is to instill a useful attitude towards (btw, it?s ?toward? in the US) learning. Once the attitude is engaged, teaching is more about directing curiosity. What chance for the next generation if their teachers can?t be bothered with the basics of fundamental principles such as literacy and numeracy? What chance for their subsequent teachers to be of maximal benefit to the pupil/student? I predict a future of excessive ambiguity, confusion, misunderstanding, and frustration for these kids.

I see a notion of pride of knowledge versus pride of reasoning. Some of us define ourselves by our knowledge; some of us define ourselves by our reasoning. The first lot tend to use ?because? as an emphatic answer, and only replace their beliefs when assured by a figure of perceived authority that the replacement belief is better than the belief being replaced. The second lot are often accused of being stubborn as they stick to their reasoning until a flaw in that reasoning is exposed.

I know the type I?d prefer as a teacher.

What a dilemna for you.