Grinity and passthepotatoes - you both make good points from both sides. My son - now 10 - does know more than the teachers.
we are having a(nother) fraught time over bullying, and a meeting called to discuss this descended into a litany of littrle'uns faults. Anyhow, in order to demonstrate his knowledge and ability to compare 2 pieces of literature I told them how one day in the car he asked me why the boys in Nicholas Nickleby were sent to Dotheboys Hall (look of discomfort on headmasters and teacher's faces). I explained that in Victorian times sometimes children born outside of marriage were sometimes sent away. Anyhow, he then asks me about Gloucester's sons Edmund and Edgar (teacher and headmasters faces now showing increased horror) and about the way the bastard son (Shakespeare's words mind - not mine - bringing a look of horror now) mistreated his brother to get Gloucester's favour. Teachers now totally lost.
The point is - their ignorance was written all over their faces, they don't recognise how special it is to be able to draw these 2 stories together - in fact they don't even know the stories anyhow. Shouldn't have used the word bastard tho' - ooooH no!
many teachers have very fragile egos and are used to always being right (which is sometimes necessary), hate to be seen as making a mistake, can't be told anything, and that maybe you can find some way of expressing this to you little'un. I now tell mine that sometimes he knows more than them and he must be gentle with them - in a nice way.
But it's hard
Great book - Dumbing Us Down - eye opener!
Last edited by Raddy; 06/29/10 11:17 PM.
