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

yes I read books, shoot me. I do think it’s embarrassing to set out to teach others and not know basic things.
That's exactly the sort of sneering attitude that's ridiculous.

I also read lots of books and consider myself to have a good, broad general knowledge, but there are some topics I know more about than others and I can think of times when I've had to scramble for a name mid conversation, or i've half remembered a story etc. There are topics I know lots about, topics less so, and the same for other people. It's not a sign of lacking intelligence.

The issue I have in this thread is the sneering superiority of "these are things I know so I consider them to be basic and it's embarrassing if anyone doesn't know the things I think are important". It is very much the general knowledge equivalent of people who think they're smart for pulling apart someone's use of regional dialects online, or resorting to attacking someone's SPaG rather than engage with the issue. In my experience people who do those things like to consider themselves more intelligent than they are as those who are genuinely bright have no need to pull others down in an unpleasant way.

Yes, but teachers PLAN lessons IN ADVANCE.

This is not a spontaneous conversation with friends about Brazil or Hitler, when it wouldn't surprise me at all if people didn't know - my general knowledge is also often a bit rubbish - but information taught to children at school.

that's an important and relevant difference!

I don't feel superior about it and I am not sneering. I just believe that a teacher should check facts before teaching something out of their area of expertise. Do that while planning the lesson - quick search online.

But as I said in my very first post before thejollyroger lost the plot with nitpickiness, maybe the teacher misspoke because she was nervous having a parent present in her class.

It’s “nitpicking” when I correct the OP, but it’s a purely value-neutral pointing out the facts when she or anyone else corrects the teacher? Why is that? Why are some people (but never teachers) considered above being put right on the facts?

Do that while planning the lesson - quick search online.

But firstly, this wasn’t a planned lesson, it was a show and tell. And secondly, a quick search online will NEVER guarantee you will never get a fact wrong. There’s too much information for any one person to never get a fact wrong. I’ve done it myself, however carefully I plan a lesson.

You can't know everything, nobody does and teachers might have to teach something out of their area of expertise, but with the internet there is no excuse

Of course there is. Time is a finite resource. Teachers are short of it. But even if you had endless time to check every fact in the world, you would still get some things wrong because it’s not possible to never make a mistake.

I would have thought that was general knowledge and I think not great the teacher got that wrong. I would point it out but gently.

Norestformrz

And they are. With a reasonable and professional allowance for the occasional mistake. Which I hope we would allow people in any profession.

@thejollyroger

Completely agree - it's not possible to never make a mistake.

This discussion is based on a tiny-weeny bit of knowledge about the teacher. It's absolutely possible the misinformation he/she gave was one-off.

She might have got this bloody horrible coughing/sinusitis bug that's going round that made me ill for 6 weeks. There are loads of reasons why the teacher might have had an off day. It's certainly possible that she / he normally checks facts much more thoroughly.

So, it's true we are only judging based on minimal info. I do hope the teacher is more accurate normally.

I wonder if the teacher has seen this thread. I'd feel shit if I was the teacher and read it...

Yes, but teachers PLAN lessons IN ADVANCE.
We do.
But we don't plan every single interaction.
I plan all my lessons in detail, but not what might come up in morning registration and tutorial. I can't predict what topics a class of 14 year olds will mention each morning. I have strong general knowledge and am well-read. There are still times when a name won't come to mind, or a date floats from my mind (once I got the year of the Good Friday Agreement wrong, having already covered it correctly).

I'm sure some people on here would be the types to roll their eyes, tut, deem that error of recall as a sign of professional incompetence and a frankly embarrassing lack of basic general knowledge.

Meanwhile offline it's a mistake of recall and only those who enjoy feeling superior by judging others would have an issue.

MrsKypp

Me too. The poor woman has been shredded - variously - for her lack of intellect, application and ethics, and her entire competency brought into question because she doesn’t know much about the Berlin Wall. She probably knows a lot about something, whether it be linear algrebra or the literature of the Iberian peninsula under the Umayyads...

@thejollyroger

show and tell, oh ok, then not planned.

So, be more careful what you (the teacher) say then if you don't really know!

The Brazil comment about being Spanish speaking was pretty unbelievable though; I'd be surprised (in a bad way) if I heard a teacher say that.

As I said, my general knowledge is pretty rubbish at times, but teachers have a responsibility to be aware of their own limitations and shut up when they don't know.

So, be more careful what you (the teacher) say then if you don't really know!

But one more time (and really, this is getting tedious now) she clearly thought she did know. That’s the nature of misconceptions.

@Lolasmiles

Yes, I can imagine things crop up that teachers can't answer. Can't they just say "great point, interesting question - I'd like to look at that next lesson" then check the facts between lessons?

I do understand that teachers are totally overworked though, and overstressed. Goodness, I could never cope with the disciplining etc. LOTS of respect for teachers xxxxx

@thejollyroger

absolutely - I'm sure that teacher knows a lot about other subjects. Nobody can know everything about everything. My own knowledge of literature is so rubbish it is actually embarrassing!

I find teaching wrong information like that about Hitler is unethical because so many suffered so terribly because of his policies and actions.

Surely it depends what the wrong information is? If a secondary school teacher doesn't know that Hitler was responsible for the deaths of people because of their religion, disability or other reason then that is unethical to not teach that just as it would be to deny that the holocaust happened but a mistake about his views on reunification is not unethical, just uninformed (which many of us are, I don't know what his views are about German reunification and nor do I need to).

I would be worried but not at all surprised. One of my best friends trained as a teacher via an education degree, not a PGCE. She only managed to pass one of her a levels, and it was art. She is now a deputy headteacher (under 40).

Not bashing all teachers. I know there are a lot of excellent, well educated and intelligent teachers out there, but the bar is not high.

My own knowledge of literature is so rubbish it is actually embarrassing!

It’s not embarrassing! Nobody can know everything. Why does it embarrass you that you don’t know about literature? I know nothing about zoology or mechanical engineering. I’m not ashamed of it.

I'm a secondary/sixth form German teacher who also specialises in History and this whole thread is fascinating.
I'd have piped up (appropriately I'd like to think) at the time but then again I have form for that kind of thing. Maybe something along the lines of pointing out that AH committed suicide in 1945 and the Wall didn't start until 1961 and G wasn't reunified until 1989 and just left it at that, although I might not have given the benefit of the doubt about eg the Südetenland and "unifying" the G speaking peoples.
I fully feel your frustration. There's a lot of ignorance misconceptions about Germany. No excuse for basic fundamentals though.

No excuse for basic fundamentals though

Yes, there is. You teach German and you’re a History specialist! Of course you know more about the subject than a person who may have specialised in rivers, anatomy or musical composition. It is absolutely an excuse not to know the fundamentals about everything that might come up in a classroom.

It's pretty basic isn't it that H died in 1945.

Isn't it????

(Unless one dons the old tin foil hat....)

MrsKypp
That would be a valid response if a teacher wasn't sure about something, and it's typically what people do.

Bluffing and talking nonsense when someone doesn't know something is unreasonable.
Someone thinking they know something and making an error in conversation can happen to us all.

I think that's why I find some of the attitudes on this thread patronising and unpleasant.

Primary teacher here and that’s appalling. That teacher should not be teaching a topic without thoroughly researching it. Excellent subject knowledge is a fundamental part of the job.

newyearoldme

Well, yes, but the teacher may well know he died in 1945. She may just have confused the Berlin Wall with Versailles and the division of Germany from some of the territories of the Second Reich, as I explained above.

Excellent subject knowledge is a fundamental part of the job

And she may well have excellent subject knowledge. But like every single person alive, she doesn’t know everything.

@thejollyroger to be fair it's pretty unlikely she'd know nothing whatsoever about the Berlin Wall yet have intricate knowledge of the Versailles Treaty and Bismarck's foreign policy.

newyearoldme

But again, that’s the nature of misconception, and the nature of teaching seven or eight subjects: you end up knowing a little about a lot, and that makes errors more likely. I am not saying she knows about Versailles. I am saying she probably does know Hitler wanted a reunified Germany, does know there was this thing called the Berlin Wall and it came down in 1990 and probably does know Germany was sub-divided after WW1. And she added those facts together and came to the wrong conclusion. It really isn’t the end of the world.