<p>You know what they say . . . [Verbing</a> weirds language.](<a href=“http://bookishmonkey.files.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/2007/09/verbing-weirds-language1.jpg]Verbing”>http://bookishmonkey.files.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/2007/09/verbing-weirds-language1.jpg)</p>
![http://bookishmonkey.files.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/2007/09/verbing-weirds-language1.jpg]Verbing](http://bookishmonkey.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/verbing-weirds-language1.jpg%5DVerbing){kind=link}
<p>My SIL who is a teacher had to correct another teacher at her high school who said, “the reason the state’s budget is in trouble is because it has to spend so much on the wars in the Middle East.” </p>
<p>My SIL had to explain to her that the federal gov’t, not the state gov’t funds war efforts.</p>
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<p>I’m laughing! I’m sending this to my son right away.</p>
<p>My D had a substitute teacher who said that Native Americans didn’t migrate from Siberia, and it was offensive to their beliefs to say that they did.</p>
<p>Hilarious. Here’s my favorite, written in the margin of a high school senior’s graded paper by the English teacher, “This paragraph needs developed.”</p>
<p>My daughter’s senior English teacher reviewed her introductory paragraph for a long paper. In her edits, the teacher suggested D use the term “self-actualized.” D took all the edits exactly as the teacher had suggested and re-submitted the paragraph. She got it back with, “I’m not sure ‘self-actualized’ is appropriate here, but its up to you.” (Face-palm!)</p>
<p>Junior year HS English: when a student yawns in class, (female) teacher says: “You wouldn’t do that if you were in my bed.” She did this regularly, the school knew about it, and it was OK because she was a “legend” and many kids/parents loved her.</p>
<p>I was mentoring a group of 3rd graders and their student teacher gave out a worksheet about pioneer life. It included a picture of a mortar and pestle, and the kids asked which was which. The teacher was flummoxed by this question (didn’t you look at your own worksheet, genius?), but concluded that the “pess-tull” was the bowl and the mortar the pounding stick.</p>
<p>To start with my D is totally deaf in one ear and all teachers are given a list of the students with special needs on a monthly basis. When you are from our part of Canada winters are miserable. So picture this grade 2 student wearing winter clothing with a Toque (heh I am Canadian) then her hood over that and a scarf around her face while playing outside at recess. The bell rings and she legitimately did not hear it. The teacher grabbed her by the shoulder turned her around and yelled (whats the matter are you deaf) loud enough that all of the kids around heard it. When my D answered yes the teacher went balistic, had D sent to the principals office and when the principal confirmed that yes she was indeed hard of hearing the teacher told the principal that if my D ever missed the bell again she could stand outside and freeze. Needless to say that teacher did not stick around for long.</p>
<p>^^^ It’s too bad when they do one thing stupid, but at least this one didn’t get a chance to do two things stupid.</p>
<p>Seventh grade science teacher: There’s humility in the air.
Same teacher, a few months later: Some people have darker skin because they have more pygmies in their skin.</p>
<p>^^^We would all be better off with more humility in the air.</p>
<p>It’s possible that teacher actually has anomia – which is a form of aphasia where someone knows what they want to say, but the wrong word comes out. This can be a learning disability, or it can be a neurological problem that develops later on, as a result of a degenerative disease, stroke or head trauma, or simply aging. So while it may be amusing, it isn’t necessarily an indication of ignorance. (I’m sure Oliver Sacks has probably written a chapter about this in one of his books …)</p>
<p>calmom: Thanks for the useful info. Did a former president suffer from this?</p>
<p>In the situation I described (humility and pygmies), it was most definitely not anomia. It was someone who was placed in a teaching position without having had the background and education he should have had. (About 35 years ago in a small town in the South.)</p>
<p>I had a health teacher (really a coach) who warned us about becoming “obeast.” I actually prefer that pronunciation.</p>
<p>Our 3-year-old preschool D loved calling the comforter I sewed her “her comfortable,” and took it to “show & tell.” It was adorable & a memory I treasure. :)</p>
<p>I like “obeast” too! It gets the point across. <grin></grin></p>
<p>As for using a similarly-sounding word instead of the right one…</p>
<p>My dad had a bad habit of doing this. My mom would tease him with: “You’re always in ball field but never on base.” ;)</p>
<p>But, getting back to topic…</p>
<p>My best friend and I were talking about this subject and she reminded me on an instance that happened to her D when she was in the 5th grade. The teacher would often have the kids “read and critique” each others’ essays or projects before turning them in. (a habit that I think can be silly ). </p>
<p>Well, one time another student asked her D if he could read and critique her homework from the previous night, so she gave him her homework paper. Turns out the kid just wanted to copy some of her answers. A few minutes later, the teacher saw him with her paper on his desk.</p>
<p>Both kids got in trouble for cheating (if you knew this girl, you’d know she’s very naive and was innocent). Yet, teacher gave them both an F for the assignment. </p>
<p>The teacher would not admit that it would be easy for a young kid to be confused when one way is “acceptable and encouraged” by the teacher and the other way is “cheating.” Those of us who are older might be able to see the difference, but a child isn’t necessarily going to.</p>
<p>My D missed a LOT of HS because of chronic health issues. One day, she & a friend were hauled into the counselor’s office with the teacher ranting that she & friend had cheated because they made the SAME error in calculations with regard to exponents and the only way that was possible was because my horrible D corrupted the friend. The friend was hysterical & in tears & D was extremely angry and defiant that they put both kids thru the wringer.</p>
<p>The counselor could easily see how more than one person could make the same error which the teacher took as proof positive that D was a horrid cheater. It did put a strain on the friendship for a while and the teacher gave her a baleful eye for the rest of the year. </p>
<p>D confided in us that she has too much confidence in her own abilities to want to copy from anyone.</p>
<p>I agree that it IS confusing to kids when the teachers sometimes encourage group work and critiquing each other’s work before turning it in and other times call it cheating. It puzzles me and the kids. The above instance was really quite traumatic all the way around. The teacher was counseled not to make good kids hysterical on such slim evidence. All these years later, it still stands out in my mind as one more cross D had to bear.</p>
<p>I am an excellent speller… but, when writing on the board, I often make errors. Why? It just looks different, and the kinetics of it are different. I had a real problem with it when I was teaching–I learned to step backward to read it over, and I asked students to correct me. I was fine when using the overhead projector, too.</p>
<p>I think it’s very easy to criticize a teacher–and very hard to show up every single day, 180 days a year, and not make a few really stupid mistakes along the way.</p>
<p>Most teachers have been great people and it sounds like you were a wonderful teacher as well. It’s nice that the few who are memorably bad really stick out because most are good and some are GREAT! </p>
<p>My kids have been fortunate to each have had some amazing teachers–S had one teacher who had to contend with several boys who really belonged in HS or college rather than 6th grade where they were as well as the regular range of kids and one kid who had an aide 24/7 because of his special needs. That amazing teacher was able to inspire ALL the kids and reinforce their love of learning–he had the brilliant kids challenging one another, building entire skeletons from popsicle sticks, string and tape during recess, making an awesome yearbook (the entire process including interviews, scans, instructing everyone, etc.), racing through the math textbook with great comprehension, and more! The other kids also got a lot out of the class and worked together and in groups to build their skills.</p>
<p>It is easy to forget that teachers are humans as well sometimes, but they really do have a lot of power to influence many lives–for good or ill.</p>