Teacher concerns?

[Hoppinggreen]

Without any previous concerns about the school in general or the teacher would you be worried if you heard your sons experienced, mature teacher say the following (within the same 10 minutes) to her Y6 class?
They speak Spanish in Brazil
Hitler wanted to reunite Germany because it was divided by the Berlin Wall

If you don't know admit it and tell the child/ren that you'll find the information together.

Norestformrz

You’re a big one for missing the point, aren’t you? A misconception isn’t the same as a gap in knowledge. The teacher thought she did know, hence the error.

Once again (yawn) I have no issue with anyone not knowing everything but to my mind if you don’t know about something you keep quiet rather than try and get it completely wrong
That's fine if it comes down to knowing nothing about a topic, but sometimes (shock horror) people make mistakes.
I'd love to know what a lesson looks like when the only things that are uttered by a teacher are a select pre-prepared statements and the teacher shouldn't go on any tangents just in case they forget something or make a mistake.

In one of my lessons I was mid-flow about politics and one of the set texts. I named the wrong prime minister. Maybe I should have kept quiet about a set text and historical knowledge I know lots about because on that occasion I got muddled. 🙄

There's a bizarre logic on here sometimes. On one hand teachers are human who make mistakes and everyone should accept they make mistakes. On the other hand teachers shouldn't make a mistake because that suggests they incompetent and should keep their mouths shut.

We definitely don’t speak Spanish. If, like PP said, half a million people speak it, that’s less than 1% of the population - closer to 0.2%. But it’s a common misconception. All the other countries around us speak Spanish* so I can see why people get confused.

*except the Guyanas.

Where’s my mistake.
Hitler wanted to unify all Germans in a “Greater Germany”, I believe that’s what I said on the thread. However I stand corrected if I’m wrong and I will certainly not teach that to a Year 6 class without double checking. At no point have I called the teacher “stupid”
And why are you describing what would have happened I had gone to the Head about this when I specifically said I hadn’t done that and had no intention of doing so?

The point is she'd just taught a WWII unit and jumped in giving false information and if no one corrects her she'll continue with this misconception

You said “Aquilla my understanding is that he wanted to unite - not reunite, the Germanic people.the difference is important.”

But he did want to reunite them. So that’s an error.

And I am describing the conversation I think you would have had with the Head because you seem to think you are doing her some big favour by not “reporting” her, and really this is the smallest of small issues.

The point is she'd just taught a WWII unit and jumped in giving false information and if no one corrects her she'll continue with this misconception

True. But it’s still very small beer, isn’t it?

Norestformrz
Or it's just an honest mistake and nothing more.

In my example I'd realised I'd names the wrong prime minister towards the end of the lesson when I was explaining an interpretation to a small group of students. They'd had the correct information in all previous lessons and subsequent coverage but it was a mistake in that lesson. I'd have been a bit surprised if I got a parental note concerning my subject knowledge on the grounds of not correcting me means I must have taught it incorrectly for years and would continue to teach incorrect information in future.

Sometimes colleagues have made mistakes on mental maths when doing percentages for tests in their heads when marking. Sometimes people absentmindedly have the wrong day of the week. Maybe a parent should correct them because otherwise they'll be doomed to spend the next 20 years incapable of ever working out a percentage.

I couldn't get to the point of viewing any mistake by any colleagues I've worked with as some deep rooted competency issue.

I couldn't get to the point of viewing any mistake by any colleagues I've worked with as some deep rooted competency issue.

Which is good, because if it was, there would be no teachers left. There is nobody who has never made a mistake.

There's be nobody in any job jolly.
There's just a weird view with teachers where they should be open to have anything and everything they do brought into question because they're not perfect gods, but also any mistake is a sign they are professionally incompetent.

There are many subject knowledge issues that concern me, but a general knowledge error isn't one of them.

There's just a weird view with teachers where they should be open to have anything and everything they do brought into question because they're not perfect gods, but also any mistake is a sign they are professionally incompetent.

We all know what it is: it’s smugness and “I know more than the teacher”. And it’s very immature.

Not great really. I wasn't aware that KS2 did the reasons for the outbreak of war. I thought it was more like "Britain During WW2" and thinking about evacuation and rationing etc. I think I was Y8/9 before we did the Treaty of Versailles and things. It's a bit in depth for 7-10 yo children to grasp I would have thought.

If she doesn't understand it, she shouldn't teach it though.

If she doesn't understand it, she shouldn't teach it though.

Once more for the hard of hearing: she thought she did understand it.

calamity It wasn't in a topic lesson where she was teaching that particular thing. It was a comment as part of a show and tell session.
That's why I think we need to keep some perspective.

It would be more similar to a secondary form tutor making a reference to a news story or fact during registration time and either getting a bit muddled recalling something, or genuinely making a silly mistake on something they know well.

There's a huge difference between a mistake in general conversation and inadequate lesson preparation.

I would be concerned, yes.

Both examples show not only a lack of general knowledge, but also a lack of insight into having a limited general knowledge.

Both examples show serious ignorance, but the second is more serious ethically.

I wouldn't know what to do if I heard my kids' teacher say things like that. I would definitely be concerned, also about what other rubbish inaccurate information she was passing on.

No, he didn’t want to reunite them, to do that they would have had to be previously united
The first point of the Nazi 25 point programme (sort of their manifesto) is “we demand the unification of all Germans in the greater Germany”
Germanic people were spread across several countries, borders back then tended to be a bit more fluid. Some Germanic people found themselves living outside Germany after WW1 but some had never really lived there - Germany wasn’t even a country until Some 20 years before Hitler was born
My knowledge of German History isn’t really the point here is it though?
And I’m not doing the teacher a favour by not reporting her, it never occurred to me to do that. Someone upthread suggested it. If I wanted to discuss it with her I would direct rather than go running to her boss. But I won’t be doing that either (again, not doing her a favour)

Both examples show serious ignorance, but the second is more serious ethically.

As a teacher, I disagree. It seems to me that even a basic google for a schools suitable page would have given a 5 minute overview. If a student asks about it, and she doesn't really know because it's not part of the unit then you tell them it's a good question and try to see if they can do some researching themselves or offer to find out for them.

I wouldn't pretend to know every Shakespeare play just because I teach English. And having an "understanding" is deeper than a superficial knowledge.

Exactly calamity she clearly didn’t know , it’s not taught at Primary as far as I’m aware so no reason she should - in which case don’t mention it, especially when you havent even been asked about it

No, he didn’t want to reunite them, to do that they would have had to be previously united

Which, to some extent, they were. See, for an example, the Germano-Polish region of Upper Silesia, parts of which seceded from the former German Empire in the 1921 plebiscite, and which Hitler took back when he invaded in 1939.

And yes, your knowledge of German history is important. It shows that everyone makes mistakes, even when they think they know it all.

It's a mistake and like all mistakes needs to be addressed ...you wouldn't leave a child's errors uncorrected would you ...we learn from our mistakes if we are aware we've made them.

@LolaSmiles i take your point, but if OP is correct, the phrasing of "remember that..." implies that it was covered as part of last term's topic. Which as I said, would be surprising as I didn't think it was KS2 History to cover the causes.

However, I wasn't there. And I don't know. So we can only speculate.

It's a mistake and like all mistakes needs to be addressed ...you wouldn't leave a child's errors uncorrected would you ...we learn from our mistakes if we are aware we've made them.

And I would have no issue with the OP taking the teacher aside and mentioning the point about the Wall. She should stay away from the unification/reunification point, though (out of her depth there). The issue I have is her questioning the teacher’s competency based on 30 minutes in her classroom and some general knowledge weakness.

If we could hire people with fantastic general knowledge for primary that would be great, but again, we have to test for that.

@thejollyroger

What's wrong with what I said in your opinion then? I don't know exactly what that smiley meant!

I think saying that about Hitler was ethically really not on. If you don't know enough about such important issues then keep quiet. Teaching children wrong information is a serious problem in my opinion. Couldn't she have just looked it up on the whiteboard or her own computer? Anything rather than saying what she said.

Telling the children that people speak Spanish in Brazil is totally ignorant (of course a few do, but that's not what she meant as I understand from the OP).