My son actually did confront the teacher in K when the teacher insisted that Y and W are never vowels. I had always taught him a,e,i,o,u and sometimes Y and W. She got all huffy and said that I was wrong. He insisted that there are too many words in english where there is no vowel then, making them not words. She put her hands on her hips and said "Oh yeah, well name one!"
He rattled off a list of try, cry, why, etc. She was MAD! I got an email about it and it started another entire cycle of "this child is defiant and difficult." This was the same teacher who insisted in front of the class, that my son was lying when he said he knew how to read.
So yeah... I did not handle it well. I wrote her with a properly sited research paper about the concept of semi-vowels, when w acts like a vowel and that y is often considered a vowel because of how it makes other letters change phonemes.
And we promptly got a new school the next year :-)
Thinking back, really, I should have let it go. But I had had it with this teacher's attitude! Being a teacher and administrator myself, I know that some teachers just will not admit a mistake because they think it takes away their authority. I try hard to coach my teachers that admitting mistakes actually teaches the students to respect you and to make yourself more approachable.
