The good news? This letter is likely a fake. At least nobody has ever uncovered a real "Adam Hilliker." The fact that the name "Adam Hilliker" closely resembles "Adolph Hitler" and the date the letter was allegedly written is April, 20th-- Hitler's birthday, does a lot to brand this as a satirical poke at an authoritarian "do not question me" approach to teaching.
The bad news? Similar situations do occur. This website and its author (me) are often thought of as advocates for the education system, but what I'm really concerned about is students. If one is truly concerned about students then one must be as equally concerned with bad teaching as bad policy.
I place a very high standard on teachers. They are too influential in the lives of students to allow for bad and careless teaching to be acceptable.
I'd like to hear about real life stories such as the one in the letter. What negative experiences have you had with teachers? Share your stories below.
Here's the link to the "story".
ReplyDeletehttp://now.msn.com/detention-slips-you-shouldnt-show-your-mom
Thank you! I'll post the whole story.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteInsisted to a 6th grade Social Studies' teacher that Egyptian hieroglyphics were not a phonetic-based alphabet, and even if they were, phonetically spelling out "Spider" would not actually be the Egyptian word for "spider".
ReplyDeleteHow did that turn out? Did you end up in trouble?
ReplyDeleteI was restrained to 5 questions a day in 4th grade. Admittedly, I did ask a lot of (tough) questions. XD
ReplyDeleteHeh heh. Geometry test on inductive vs. deductive reasoning.
ReplyDeleteQ: Today is Monday. Tomorrow will be Tuesday. Inductive or deductive.
Me: Deductive
Teacher: Wrong
Me: What?
Teacher: We reason that the sun will rise tomorrow based on our experience of the sun rising every other day.
Me: That wasn't the question. That we call a day Tuesday is based on a rule we have fashioned for naming days. The sun does not rise and then paint in the sky "This is Tuesday!"
Teacher: You're being insubordinate.
I then posed the question to another teacher, who came up with the same answer as me. When I mentioned I was marked wrong by the geometry teacher, he then hemmed and hawed and said he wasn't so sure.
Omerta.
thank you....keep writing
DeleteMy primary/elementary school teacher insisted that pineapples grow on trees. Having relatives in Puerto Rico that grew fields of pineapples commercially I knew they grew on the ground. Pointing this out at the age of 8 just got me into trouble and accused of arrogance. I think I had to ask my mum them meaning of the word after school!
ReplyDeleteyes and trees grow on the ground, the stem a pineapple grows on is often called a tree
DeletePineapples are herbaceous perennials. They are not trees.
DeleteI spent my school career correcting teachers. I read waaaaaaaaayyyy too much. And now my kids do the same thing. LOL.
ReplyDeleteMy Grade 4 teacher was equally atrocious at Math and spelling, and I would constantly correct her. She tried to fail me and my parents had to get involved.
ReplyDeleteIn a junior level, English Comp class in college, I had written "for all intents and purposes" in a paper. The instructor, not a professor, circled this and wrote "for all INTENSIVE purposes". I lost points for this to give me an A- on the paper. I brought this up in class, and it led to a twenty minute discussion and debate. The teacher stubbornly refused to yield, and the grade never changed. What exactly is an "intensive purpose"?
ReplyDeleteYour use of the phrase was correct, but folksy phrases like that don't belong in academic writing. The A- was generous.
Deletemaybe you should become more intense???
DeleteThe phrase, which you used correctly, stems from 16th century English law - there is nothing "folksy" about it.
DeleteOne time in High School I corrected a physics teacher in front of our class, she had made a mistake in the caluclations. She insisted all was in order. So, after some time of this-is-wrong no-it-is- not, with some backing from my classmates, I went I corrected her calculations on the board. She stood there for a moment, silently, and then said: "Very good, I knew this was wrong. I just wanted to see if you paid attention."
ReplyDeleteAnother very good example of this teacher's approach to eduaction and life is, when she spreaded false information, claming I defamed another student. When confronted, together with the student, she said that she wanted to create a conflict between us, so we could learn how to solve this.
This reminds of me of a story from my 9th grade English class many years ago. Upon giving us our list of vocabulary words for the week, our teacher began reading the list aloud. She came to the word dawdle and pronounced it "dwadle." Most of the class argued with her for several minutes that she was incorrectly pronouncing the word. She simply would not relent and insisted that words beginning with "daw" were pronounced "dwa." She finally gave in and moved on when a friend of mine piped up with, "Wow! All this time I've been singing the national anthem wrong." And started in with, "Oh say can you see, by the DWAN'S early light..."
ReplyDeleteSchool isnt for learning, it's to get you ready for the working world. At least in the working world you have a choice.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's just me, but whenever a student corrects me, I give them an extra credit point for it. I found it to be so effective at getting them to pay attention, I now make mistakes on purpose LOL
ReplyDeleteI'd like to know who funds your site.
ReplyDeleteAfter being what you would call a straight A student all my life, I had a physics teacher that had no clue on electricity, and when I corrected her on it, she didn't like it and started screwing with my grades. That lasted for a year and nothing I could do, including reporting the problem to the principal changed it. New year, new aproach. I knew she liked to gossip, so every day I gave her gossip material (most of it false BTW) and became a straight A student again. Lesson learned: fuck honesty, hypocrisy for the win! give people what they want and they will give you what you want.
ReplyDeleteYou are correct, that's the way life works. And why the majority of the population will screw with anyone they can to get what they want. And I say "F*** THAT", I'll keep honesty and have nothing:)
DeleteI had a math teacher in high school who explained my low grade to my mother at a parent-teacher conference like this: "Their grades were based on the following. One third test scores, one third homework, one third classwork, and ine third class participation." My mother came home from that conference just shaking her head. She told me she understood completely why I flunked math. Any math teacher who insists that one grade is based on four thirds is not the sharpest or brightest crayon in the box!!!
ReplyDeleteCan't recall the reason but a teacher with a particular grudge against myself called out to me about something he wanted to me to attend to that was located 'On the right'. Maybe he wanted me to swat a fly, pick up some pencil or something whatever it was this item must've been on my left because as I looked to my right, he called out, 'That's left you idiot'.
ReplyDelete'Er no that's right,' I protested, a short but heated argument ensued, that caused a certain degree of mirth amongst the assembled at our exchange, which was characterised by increasing anger on his side and mounting incredulity on mine. I could hardly suppress my own laughter, born through anxiety rather than amusement, or disdain, but then a thought occurred to me: ' do you mean your right or my right? At this point he went a curious colour, with mouth agape mid utterance, he became silent for just enough time to see the penny drop. I think the noise of laughter must've shook the chalk dust from the blackboard or perhaps the air was thick with the vapour of his dignity.
Public school is prison training for kids.
ReplyDeleteThe only civilized solution is to convert them all to true learning centers, run by social entrepreneurs.
Anonymous is correct! School isn't about education. It's about conditioning. If you want to learn you will do that on your own time. The teachers union has an agenda that you will conform to or they will destroy you. And it will be your own fault. Parents need to wake up and save their children from the Libs.
ReplyDeleteWell, dears Sirs, I can't see where it might be wrong? Follow me, please:
ReplyDelete1Ml = 1.609Km
So 1 is less then 1.609 ! Isn't it?
And so 1.609(Km) IS GREATER THEN 1 (ML)
This is true in every part of the world, except on sea where it is even greater!
Think of it this way:
Delete1km = 3281 ft
1mi = 5280 feet
So a 1 mile is 2000 feet longer than 1 kilometer. 1 kilometer is only 60% of a mile, and 1 mile is 1.6 x longer than a kilometer.
1.609 km EQUALS 1 mi, 1 km is LESS THAN 1.609 km which is 1 mi
Delete1.609 km EQUALS 1 mi, 1 km is LESS THAN 1.609 km which is 1 mi
DeleteI remember our primary school teacher telling the class that fish breathe underwater by splitting water into Hydrogen and Oxygen and then breathing the Oxygen! I realised he was wrong but kept quiet.
ReplyDeleteDuring a spelling bee competition my son got the word "gaffe". The announcer mispronounced it and none of the other teachers corrected them. As I sat listening I spent the entire time trying to figure out what word they were actually saying. He asked for the definition and it finally clicked what word they were trying to give him.
ReplyDeleteHe didn't really care about the spelling bee so I did not make a fuss even as all the parents sat looking at each other trying to figure it out and then looking incredulously at the teachers that no one seemed to notice.
Not wanting it to damage a student later I sent an email to all the parties involved asking that they please check into it. Not a one of them ever acknowledged the error, rather copying and pasting the rules of the spelling bee. No matter how I tried to tell them, my son didn't care that he wasn't moving on, and I as a parent was ok with the bee itself, they just never would address that you had 1 teacher reading the words and 3 right there reading along to ensure there were no errors and not a one said anything or batted an eye.
I even sent them the link to the audio version of how to say it from the online dictionaries and typed out how it had been said.
Was quite frustrating as a parent to realize the teachers and staff at the school were more worried about the rules than they were about ensuring they were teaching their students correctly.
ps.....I DID go ask several teachers how they pronounced the word only by showing them the word and each said it as it was in the dictionary.
Such a shame. We all make mistakes and that is not a big deal, however, not correcting it when you are teaching thousands of kids something wrong IS a big deal. :/