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

Are you the teacher, @thejollyroger???

Ha! No.

My daughter had a teacher who was woefully ignorant about things I'd consider to be common sense, for example she told the class that penguins and polars bear both live at the North Pole, dd put her hand up and said she thought they only lived in the Southern Hemisphere but the teacher told her she was wrong and that dd was wrong to disagree. If it'd been me I'd have said 'I'm fairly sure it's what I said (if I was!) but I'll check and let you know' or 'i think you might be right, let's double check' because it's good to model how to handle being wrong.

My daughter had a teacher who was woefully ignorant about things I'd consider to be common sense, for example she told the class that penguins and polars bear both live at the North Pole

This isn’t common sense. It’s knowledge. Not everyone knows about penguins and polar bears.

@thejollyroger

It embarrasses me because my friends mostly read a lot and assume (in a nice way) that I do too. I openly say I don't read much lit; I don't try to fake it.

I have good knowledge of various other things, so it doesn't bother me other than occasionally making me feel embarrassed that I should read more - I quite like books when I do actually read.

This thread has been really interesting. I am glad several others feel the same way I do i.e. the teacher's ignorance is unacceptable because she/he is giving children wrong information about important topics (especially Hitler - the Brazil comment is a bit weird and ignorant, but doesn't shock me as much).

This thread has been really interesting. I am glad several others feel the same way I do i.e. the teacher's ignorance is unacceptable because she/he is giving children wrong information about important topics

And I am glad several others feel as I do - that people are applying a standard to the teacher that they wouldn’t apply to themselves, and it’s unfair.

@bettybattenburg

Good grief... that's completely unacceptable of the teacher to say your dd was wrong and wrong to disagree. Aren't we supposed to encourage critical thinking?

@thejollyroger

Of course you might be referring to others and not me, but I am not applying a different standard to the teacher than I would to myself. If I was teaching someone something then I'd check the facts first.

Regarding the mistakes the teacher made, if I had so little knowledge of languages spoken in other countries and of 20th century history as that person, then I would shut the f**k up about those topics.

Good having this discussion, thanks. I'm going to have some choccy biscuits now. have a great evening

MrsKypp

I am talking about the people saying various things are common knowledge when here are just as many things (one would assume) they haven’t studied or read and therefore don’t know.

As I keep saying, it isn’t possible to check everything, and as I keep saying, if you believe you know something, you don’t check. That is the nature of a misconception.

If it'd been me I'd have said 'I'm fairly sure it's what I said (if I was!) but I'll check and let you know' or 'i think you might be right, let's double check' because it's good to model how to handle being wrong
Of course it's good to model how to handle being wrong. That's something that happens in classrooms regularly if there's a mistake.

However right now there are lots of people on this thread seem to think that someone making a mistake is a sign they aren't very intelligent, it's a reason to be concerned about their professional ability, that a factual error in one lesson means they'd be worried about what else is being taught incorrectly, that not knowing something in one element of general knowledge is embarrassing, that an unplanned conversation shouldn't contain any errors at all because teachers should plan their lessons (despite it being repeatedly pointed out that this was show and tell so not a topic lesson). Oh and if anyone challenges quite smug attitudes then that's proof teachers think they should be above question.

Everyone can make mistakes, but if I had a parent decide that me recalling a historical date wrong regarding a set text one lesson was a sign that I mustn't plan my lessons, that they needed to worry I hadn't taught the GCSE course properly and lacked the common sense and basic knowledge to teach effectively and consequently I should be embarrassed by my lack of intellect and knowledge then I'd be very politely but firmly pointing out they have no business to make any comment on my professional ability and to try and make any assertions to that effect is utterly unreasonable. I'd then be speaking to my line manager regarding the situation.

However right now there are lots of people on this thread seem to think that someone making a mistake is a sign they aren't very intelligent...

Unless it’s not the teacher. Then I’m nit-picking.

Of course jolly.
Teacher makes mistake = awful general knowledge, hasn't planned lessons, obviously there's concerns about their ability to teach, they shouldn't voice anything unless it's been totally checked

Poster on the internet may have posted something inaccurate = don't correct them, stop nitpicking, it doesn't matter

(I don't know enough about the nuances of unification to say either way )

This isn’t common sense.

Common sense is not telling a pupil they are wrong which is what DD's teacher did. It's common sense for a teacher teaching about the Arctic to find out which animals and birds live there and which ones don't, I don't expect a teacher to be an expert on narwhals or Greenland sharks but I do expect them to know that polar bears and penguins do not both live at the north pole which it is the current topic.

bettybattenbur

Again, the knowledge aspect of that isn’t common sense. If you believed you knew something you didn’t actually know, you could easily get it wrong as well. I agree that in general it’s better for a teacher to respond in an open-minded way when a child challenges their factual knowledge. I would tend to say, “Why do you say that?” And if I am absolutely confident I am right I will explain how I know I am right. Your child’s teacher made the mistake of not listening. That doesn’t make the knowledge common sense.

Poster on the internet may have posted something inaccurate = don't correct them, stop nitpicking, it doesn't matter

Indeed. 😂

LolaSmiles picking on someone for their regional accent is hardly the same as expecting them to know major facts about recent important historical events. The teacher’s professional ability and intelligence is under question because she made two mistakes one minor and one major, how many mistakes would it take before you got worried about this teacher teaching your kids?

TO be fair I think (hope) it's fairly common to have gaps in your general knowledge. My Geography for example is awful, I have issues with my visual memory and though I know capital cities etc If I had to draw even a vague map of the world I'd do worse than most 10 year olds (despite being well educated and knowledgable in other areas). I do think it's important to just acknowledge when you don't know something. Sometimes even with the best of intentions you might make a mistake and it should be fine to say "OK I was convinced it was this way but made a mistake".

The teacher’s professional ability and intelligence is under question because she made two mistakes one minor and one major, how many mistakes would it take before you got worried about this teacher teaching your kids?
Wow. So two mistakes in a show and tell session is your threshold for having concerns about someone's intelligence and professional competency?

Based on your ridiculous threshold I should resign now. Using my examples above, I misremembered the year of the good Friday Agreement during a recap and also named the wrong prime minister when teaching a text I know inside out. All lesson resources were correct but at two points with a class I misremembered. According to your threshold years of excellent results and strong subject knowledge count for nothing because those two mistakes clearly being my competency into question.

Personally, I accept people in all professions are perfectly capable of human error and wouldn't be an arse and judge their professional competency for itm

LolaSmiles so what is your much more reasonable threshold? At what point do you say, I need to prepare better and at what point would you judge the professional capacity of your child’s teacher? And let me also point out that you are imagining years of excellent results and strong subject knowledge in behalf of this teacher, which makes you sound like you have a chip on your shoulder. Has someone complained about your teaching mistakes?

Given that I've had to work with staff where there are subject knowledge issues, I wouldn't be challenging anyone's professionalism for general knowledge in informal discussion time (so for secondary that would be something like form time).

I would be concerned for any of the following in my area:

• knowledge gaps for standard technical terms
• not knowing basic contextual information about literature texts
• not understanding plot, characters and themes in the books being taught
• promoting the idea that there's no right / wrong answers in English
• reinforcing interpretations that aren't plausible in light of social and historical factors

This would be an issue in their teaching, not someone making a mistake one lesson, so if I observed a lesson and a teacher had taught the lesson well, their books showed appropriate content was being taught, the students could discuss their learning etc then them getting mixed up once that lesson wouldn't leave me concerned about their subject knowledge or professionalism (and to be honest I would take a very dim view of anyone who tried to argue otherwise).

And let me also point out that you are imagining years of excellent results and strong subject knowledge in behalf of this teacher, which makes you sound like you have a chip on your shoulder. Has someone complained about your teaching mistakes?
I'm not sure how you get to that from me challenging the idea that someone can question someones professional competency from some general knowledge errors in show and tell.

The point I'm making is that EVERYONE will make mistakes, EVERYONE will have moments where their mind goes blank or they get something mixed up, so taking the idea that two errors is a reasonable threshold for questioning competency is ridiculous.

The Berlin Wall came down in 1989, not in 1990; the latter was the year of the German reunification.

LolaSmiles so why is knowledge gaps of standard technical terms a serious problem and not a minor mistake anyone can make, while knowledge gaps of major historical facts is unproblematic? Mixing a metaphor with a simile is more likely to come from a moment of temporary inattention, while thinking the Berlin Wall contributed to WWII requires multiple misunderstandings about historical context and is a deeper error. Just like if you had missed the Good Friday agreement date by a year or two either way it would be a minor error but had you situated it in the 18th century you would be deeply mistaken. Or mixing MacMillan with Wilson is a minor error but teaching that Gahndi was a U.K. PM is a major error, it presupposes multiple historical misunderstandings.

boo
Mixing up a technical term in the middle of a lesson isn't the same as a knowledge gap for technical subject terms. This is exactly my point.

On technical knowledge, mking a mistake in a lesson isn't the same as having a knowledge gap, so someone getting a term wrong/confusing two terms in a lesson wouldn't concern me, but someone teaching a lesson on figurative language and mixing them up would bother me. It would also bother me if student books showed that their subject knowledge isn't being taught accurately.

On historical facts/general knowledge, someone making a general knowledge error during a discussion in form time or during discussion about a different topic wouldn't bother me and I'd put it down to a simple mistake. It would show their general knowledge in that areas isn't the best, but it wouldn't leave me questioning their competency.

But smeone teaching the same incorrect fact in a lesson on the topic and it being wrong in their lesson materials would be problematic to me.

As I said earlier, it's a fairly silly mistake the teacher made here, but it doesn't warrant some of the claims made on this thread about not planning lessons, questioning professionalism, questioning competency and so on.

TooGood2BeTrue

Nope. The wall was crossed by thousands without repercussions, starting in ‘89, and the Brandenburg Gate was opened in ‘89, but the Wall came down in June 1990.

See: factual errors are easy to make.