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Would you point out a spelling mistake in a handout from the teacher?

188 replies

emkana · 25/11/2006 00:07

We had a note in the book bag today -

"We will be making Christingle's next week."

Aaaargh!!!!!
It really bugs me - but should I let it go?

OP posts:
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exbury · 28/11/2006 22:27

Go on, admit it, Tallulabelle, it must be tempting to "mark" parents notes sometimes...

The article says it all, unfortunately. The lousy pay and conditions teachers have to put up with has resulted in a lowering of the entry requirements in order to attract enough people to train. My mother used to coach teacher training students through maths GCSE, which they had to have, along with English, before they could qualify. She no longer does, because it is no longer required!

As the child of a teacher, my earliest "what I want to be when I grow up" deciosion was ... "not a teacher". I am full of admiration for those that do it, but I know I never could.

exbury · 28/11/2006 22:30

Oh, and my typos are all the fault of restless 7wk DD - spot the trend in people who are on MN at this time of night!

TALLULAHBELLE · 29/11/2006 17:13

No but it is tempting to read them out in the staffroom!!! Especially the one that said, "Please excuse Wee Jimmy for being off. We had a bad 'Chinese'(corrected for p/c reasons)and have all got the skitters!"

newgirl · 29/11/2006 17:27

I wanted to add that one of my best friends is a teacher and is a terrific person - she is also dyslexic (not sure if i spelt that right!!) so she is bound to make spelling errors from time to time. I would however be delighted to have her teach my child - she is great and I can only imagine her class think so too

Elasticwoman · 29/11/2006 22:21

My dd goes to a school which has Specialist Language College status and there was a poster on the wall which contained the same punctuation error (misuse of apostrophe) several times. When I pointed this out to the Modern Languages department on the open evening, they looked at me gone out, as though I were completely barking.

Were they right?

Please may I have some brownie points for correct use of the subjunctive in any case?

BTW I am also a school governor (at a primary school) and the head has made it clear she is very keen to have any typos pointed out in documents we are discussing, so that they can be corrected.

utterlyconfused · 30/11/2006 07:18

I came on to start a thread on this, as my dd came home yesterday with a note starting "as your aware", and I don't know if i should do something about it. I have read 90% of the posts on this thread and would like to point out now that I think teachers are amazing. Don't know how they do it. I struggle with just the 3 but the thought of 24, all day, every day, and there must always be some you don't particularly like. Plus, my dd adores her teacher (who is v young) and her work (she is 6) has come on beyond belief this year because she just wants to please her. The last thing I would want to do is hurt her or embarrass her.
HOWEVER, while I do take on board your comments about everybody making mistakes, there are genuinely some people who don't know any better, and what bothers me is that there is a possibility that my dd is being taught by someone who doesn't know the difference between "your" and "you're". When the parents first met her I was alarmed by some of her grammar ("Jenny and me" instead of "Jenny and I" etc) but I put that down to nerves (although, is that really an excuse? Either you do it right or you don't) and didn't comment.
This is exactly thepoint in their education where they are learning that although some words sound the same the may be spelt differently (there/their etc) and it seems that my dd's teacher doesn't know the difference. How on earth can she teach effectively? I just don't feel right letting it go.

kiskidee · 30/11/2006 10:30

you raise that sort of stuff with your MP, the teachers' and parents' representatives on the board of governors, the parents' surveys that the school and ofsted conducts.

you alone writing a letter may not impact on any of these people. a large number of parents doing so might.

is that going to make a blind bit of difference to your child's day to day education? no.

the more these things are brought to the forefront by parents through the established channels then possibly the more seriously it will be taken up someday. I am not holding my breath though.

Hopefully, your dd will hear grammatical English being spoken and read in other parts of her day which will counteract the shortcomings of teachers.

I grew up using English in school only and in books i read. Not at home or in play with my friends. I know the teachers taught me back then were not completely native speakers either so made mistakes. It was my desire to learn English that made me as competent in it as I am. These days, with kids more attracted to the bright lights and bling, bling of telly, playstation, mobiles and ipods, learning and using proper English is way down the list of their priorities. And i have to compete with that when i am trying to teach enough grammar to raise their achievement in MFL!

personally, the only way kids will learn grammatical English is to bring back grammar in schools and a very early age. It is a chicken and egg scenario though. How do we get our hands on enough people, money and time to train all the current teachers in correct usage of the English language? Surely the gov't has better things to spend its money on rather than the education of the next generation.

noonar · 30/11/2006 16:48

utterly confused, actually lots of people misuse 'i'( as in 'jenny and i'). whether it's 'me' or 'i', depends on the context. People tend to over use 'i'.

for example, you should say 'jenny and i are happy' BUT 'she went shopping with jenny and ME'.

to be sure to get it right, just remove the other person's name to see if the sentence sounds right when you refer just to YOURSELF. ie you'd say 'she went shopping with me' (not 'i').

so, the teacher in question may have been correct, after all!

utterlyconfused · 01/12/2006 11:00

No, she wasn't. I absolutely agree with you, but she wasn't. She was talking about the other teacher and the decisions they had made over various things. Gosh, if I wasn't 100% sure that my grammar was correct, I wouldn't even be entertaining the idea of being judgemental about the teacher's!

morocco · 01/12/2006 11:28

I can't turn off that red pen in my head either! but it doesn't really matter to me unless it was my child's work that was being incorrectly corrected (if that makes sense?)
one point about the grammar thing though, possibly made elsewhere on thread, I've just skimmed, is that some of the examples of poor grammar people often give are just examples of dialect differences.

utterlyconfused · 01/12/2006 14:07

I think that is a really good point Morocco, and certainly the first time I met this girl, it was a dialect thing. But I find that confusing too. My children do not speak with any accent at all, - I don't mind if they pick up one of the local accents, but I would rather their actual language remained "correct". Is that wrong?

kiskidee · 01/12/2006 19:56

"My children do not speak with any accent at all" - PMSL

I suggest you homeschool then.

exbury · 04/12/2006 19:37

Kiskidee, did you miss "I don't mind if they pick up one of the local accents" in utterlyconfused's last message?

In my experience, children always pick up local accents at school (and lose/change them almost instantly if they move) - but that doesn't mean they use them at home. I know children who speak completely differently at home and at school, and they deal with it in just the same way as bilingual children do - i.e. without any apparent problems. I would imagine the same will happen with "dialect" - they will pick it up and use it at school, but if that is not the way you speak at home, then chances are they won't either.

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