A little concerned about ds1's teacher...long!

[marthamoo]

Now I know teachers are only human and they do make mistakes. Not a problem. But ds1 has just gone into Year 4 - what are we now, 4 weeks into term?

So far:

He came home with the word "traditionary" as one of his spellings. Now it is a word (I didn't think it was, I've never heard it used, but I looked it up) but I was fairly sure it was a mistake. I said he had probably copied it down wrongly and it was likely to be traditional or traditionally.

I went to parent's evening (just one where the teachers tell you what kind of thing they will be doing over the academic year). One of the parents asked the teacher about the word "traditionary" - at which point about 8 others piped up and queried it too. Mrs X looked completely blank - and said "well, do you have a dictionary at home?" It was fairly obvious that was what she had written on the board - and she couldn't see why we were querying it.

Anyway - that's not so bad. It did turn out to be traditionally in the test, btw.

So on to numeracy. I posted one of the questions of ds1's maths sheet which he had trouble with last week (which is why I asked for help finding the thread last night and QofQ kindly found it for me). The question was

4 = [ ] - 10

Ds thought it was 6 (reading it backwards) and I said it was 14. I wanted to check though 'cos I'm crap at maths Anyway I was right.
Ds1 came home yesterday and said "hey, Mum - I was right about that sum - it was 6. You made me put the wrong answer!" ???? Do they do maths differently these days? Incidentally, I didn't just 'tell' him the right answer - I explained why that was the right answer.

He had another maths sheet this week. One of the things was writing the time on a clock face. This sheet he brought back - he got it right, it's been marked wrong.

I don't know whether to go in and query all this, or whether to let it go. I feel a bit cross about it - you learn from your mistakes, but you learn from what you get right too, don't you? I mean, it's only 3 little things but - 3 in 4 weeks? Plus, from an aggrieved mother PofV, it is galling to be told that she must be right because she is a teacher - implication being that I know nothing

Shall I just let it go?

"However I will say after years in the classroom that even the best of us can, from time to time, make simple mistakes whilst trying to do too many things at once."

Fair enough - she may have made a mistake when she marked it/made up the question etc etc. But to make the SAME mistake when a parent questions it.........

I know teachers can make errors.......all the things in DS1's classroom that have his name already written on (the birthday calendar, his name card, his peg etc etc) have a correction on them - as for the 1st 2 weeks of term they were spelling his name wrong - it took them 3 weeks to get the surnmae right

Of course she should have admitted it. It's very intimidating to see how your posts can be dissected. Maybe I am too sensitive for this!

I was just trying to make the point that everyone has an opinion on education. There's never a shortage of people willing to point out one's mistakes. Yes, the best policy is to admit them readily. (I have had loads of practice at that one!) However you are still questioning her professional judgement in a way that many other professions aren't challenged. That can be really painful for some people. It may be that she falls into that category and rather than hold her hands up and plead "guilty your honour" she decided to try and bluff it out . Not a choice many of us would choose but she did.. for some reason.

But surely it is the mark of a decent teacher to come clean when they have made a mistake? God knows I talked enough rubbish in my lecturing days it's easy enough to find one part of your brain racing ahead to the next point you're going to make, only to catch yourself saying the complete opposite of what you actually meant to say. It used to happen in written texts too there is a law that states you will only notice typos after you've run off 70 copies.

The way of dealing with this is not to get defensive, but to 'fess up straight away with a jokey comment about deliberate mistakes. Or if you really don't know, where's the harm in saying so?

My gripe with some of dd1's teachers has been that any attempt on her behalf to argue (and I accept it is irritating to be corrected by a snotty 9yo) was either stonewalled or elicited "how dare you question me" outrage. Sign of an unconfident or inexperienced teacher IMO. Looks like that's what you may be dealing with here, Mmoo. But I think the point is important enough, and your child still so young and impressionable, that I think it will have to be sorted out once and for all.

oh tish and tosh. "pivot" my a*
it is bad enough that she doesn't know what an equals sign means. we all make mistakes though, but to try and cover it up by talking complete pish about pivots,,, grrrrrr

I don't mind kids correcting a mistake, just gawd help them if they think that they know the stuff i'm teaching them better than me!

There is a particular kid of kid who does this, and god but it sets your teeth on edge, 'yes I may have copied 'on' instead of 'one' but that does not give you the right the try to look down on me or arse around in my lessons' if what you want to say but are far too professional to do so

I also think that part of the reason that this woman might not have 'fessed up if that she feared that she would have the massed ranks of parents baying for her blood. Trust me it feels a bit like that at the start of the term

frogs - everything I read about your dd reminds me so much of me at that age.... she sounds delightful and is welcome round here for tea any day of the week.

I agree completely Frogs. My ds1 has had big problems in the past with teachers who cope badly when their mistakes are pointed out.

A couple of weeks ago I was doing a spelling test with a group of yr7s, and I wrote one of the answers up wrong on the board

I immediately gave a "point" to the first child who told me.

Way to go, roisin!

There's nothing that makes people madder than being told black is white when you know damn well it isn't. And the more power a person has over you, the more irritating it is.

Just to be boring, I still maintain she isn't wrong per se (so long as, when you read from the right, you read the 10 as a positive number, not a negative one), she just appears to be using a different (and confusing, weird, ridiculous, shouldn't-be-allowed, all of that I grant you) presentation convention, and that's what I would suggest the discussion starts with - on the Sun Tzu principle that if you give your enemy an escape route he will not be forced to try to massacre you

but Bonkie - in maths the universally accepted convention is that the sign 9positive or negative) always pertains to the immediately following number. So the negative number can onlt be the 10!

Bonkie!!!!!!!!!!

Because the negative is describing the number, not commanding an action. Like the quote from Sun Tze tho!

I meant there are no negative numbers at all. Or have I misunderstood you?

There are negative numbers

Bonkie, well? Bonkersie, maybe.

Noo, noo, hmb I didn't mean negative numbers don't exist in principle, I meant the sum in question is all made up of positive numbers. See my writing of it back to front below. Oh God, I think.

I'm going to have some wine.

I have beaten you to it.

The marking of year 11 books has driven me to it you see!

I'd write a formal but courteous letter to the head enclosing copies of the work and setting out the steps you have already taken with the teacher and her response.

The head should know what is going on - the teacher is supposed to be helping lay the foundations of your son's education and is making serious mistakes in pretty fundamental subjects. They aren't "having an off day" mistakes either.

If you feel mean about writing in such terms throw in some nice positive stuff about the teacher!

No, the only way of reading right to left is if the minus sign pertains to the 10.

We had a teacher, who I'm not going to pretend was the greatest teacher in the world, but if we found 3 mistakes in 1 lesson that he'd made, he bought everyone in the class a mars bar.

The sum can be written several ways:

4=14-10
14-10=4
14+(-10)=4
4=14+(-10)
(-10)+14=4
4=(-10)+14

Which ever way you look at it -(+10) is the same as +(-10), so the answer of 6 is incorrect.

I have 'A' levels maths and physics plus a degree in chemistry.

Crap at english though.....................

She must be corrected. Has she explained to the class why her original answer was wrong? Does she not understand negative numbers? This sort of thing makes me so angry. DD (9) was given homework about using apostrophes last year and I went in and pointed out that the sheet was incorrect in many places. I was told that "I do not have time to check the homework that I hand out". No, because you just print the stuff off from some internet site.
I always correct the stuff that is sent home. I used to be polite about it but am far less so now. This is probably why I never get to see their homework again as it mysteriously disappears into the homework folder in school.

I just can't understand mistakes like that. I mean how hard can it be to find out the correct use of apostrophes.

yoyo! Not surprised, though. Headteacher of my children's school can neither spell, punctuate nor structure an argument. Dd1's Friday evening entertainment includes red-penning the weekly newsletter to parents. And this is the man who sent us and other recalcitrant parents a snotty note home, asking why we hadn't kept an appointment for him to check through our secondary transfer form.

marthamoo - only read half of the thread but she is taling out of her arse

Negative numbers is part of the numeracy work at the start of year 4.......