A few days ago
Lauren

What to do when the teacher is wrong?

I work as a teacher’s aide in a private elementary school. It’s a very high quality school with great teachers. However, a couple times this year when I’ve been in the 3rd grade classroom, I’ve heard the teacher say a few things that I know for a fact to be inaccurate. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a great teacher and an intelligent person, but she’s had her facts confused on a few different occasions. She taught the students that M is the Roman numeral for 100, when I know that M is 1000 and C is 100. Also, I heard her mixing up the terms ‘square’ and ‘square root.’ She was teaching ‘the square root of 3 is 9,’ etc.

My question is, how do I handle this? I don’t think it’s fair to the children if they are being taught inaccuracies. While I like this teacher quite a bit, she has a very dominant, strong personality, and I don’t think she’d enjoy being interrupted in the middle of her lesson to be corrected by a woman half her age. How can I approach her about this?

Top 10 Answers
A few days ago
rtgillegao

Favorite Answer

think positive everything is past away. Heart to heart talk is better. invite her a dinner or snack then open to her regarding about your observation while she teach her student…. maybe they never notice her mistake just correct it. do it in a nice way in right approach tell her something your correction you wanted to correct because its unfair to the student right.Nobody is perfect. if there is no someday whose check or correct our mistake we continue to do it because we know it is correct..
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A few days ago
mayan
You are a very good observer and I think you have the qualities of a very good teacher aide.

If the teacher was as great as you described then I think it is always best to let her know politely, right at that moment, as if it was a casual correction.

Teachers nowadays are more considerate and would open the learning gates to anyone inside the classroom- I do, because i know that I am not the sole authority in learning, and that i myself could learn a few interesting and correct facts from my students or from my teacher aides.

I bet she will look back and think a few times but she will even thank you for this kind gesture.

Continue that keeness in your work and you’ll reach greater heights!

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A few days ago
sheetal
Hi Mam, i understand ur feelings regarding ur colleague but she is doing wrong, in the teaching learning process mistakes have no value and importance may it be ur favourite person teacher or student. here it is concern regarding the students future, the students learn and imitate whatever the teacher does or she acts, the students will learn the same thing. facts can be confused by any one so may i and even it may be u some other day it is not a problem in correcting an intelligent teacher also, because thru corrections we learn more but just while correcting the teacher be polite and make urself clear, when someone tells something to us in harsh manner or dominant manner we would not like so as it is. i know u might know it. u can even take a thing as a sum of solving a problem where u r unable to understand as if and ask ur colleague to solve it this will help in recognising her mistake by showing her relevant text material.

Thank u

this is my opinion regarding this question, may my suggestion help you.

bye, take care.

if u find anyother relevant suggestion pls do mail me at [email protected]

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A few days ago
Anonymous
i think it really comes down to if she respects you or not — if she is really dominating you might want to ask more seasoned staff how they would handle the situation. you could scribble a note or something and pass it on — the errors she is making are simple and easy to correct — not like earth shattering.

teaching is a hard profession if you haven’t been able to deduct that yet — you are supposed to be everything from psychiatrist to social worker and teach at the same time. i won’t even get into having to deal with the “special” parents that want to refute everything from biology to halloween. you job is as an aide — i think passing a note in the middle of the lecture would help her save face and recognize her mistakes.

over meals is always a great way to discuss things. you could bring up that sometimes you think she might not be 100% and you would like to help but don’t know what the best way to help would be because you don’t want to interrupt her lecture. i think just a note slid to her is a safe bet though.

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A few days ago
dicovi
The best thing to do is to approach the teacher in a very tactful way and tell her that she had made an error while teaching.

Give her examples of the error.Remember if you just ignore this you are not doing anything to help those students cause you know that they had learned the wrong thing.

You don’t loose anything by doing what is right but you will always feel a sense of guilt if you just ignore it.

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A few days ago
Anonymous
I’d bring these up to her during the prep. If you’re afraid of her, just leave her a note on her desk, maybe a printout from online with the correct facts on them, circling the ones she got wrong. I’m sure I mess up 2 or 3 things a year too, and this is not abnormal, what causes the problem is her apparant agressive personality. If someone tells me I’m wrong, I don’t mind, and welcome corrections. (Mostly because it seems my memory gets worse each year!)
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A few days ago
kansas city gal
can you speak to her alone somewhere. Maybe she didnt realize what she had done. Say something like I know you didn’t me to say so and so and kinda laugh it off she should correct it as soon as possible so as not to confuse the students after all even teachers may mistakes
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A few days ago
anebrich
I would just make a mental note about it and talk to her after class.
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A few days ago
Anonymous
You should just tell her flat out. What could it hurt? You’re just trying to help.
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A few days ago
Anonymous
you can always approach the school principal… tell him/her about the problem and maybe he’ll/she’ll be the one to sort it out..^_^
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