I’m guessing from your tone that you missed the part of the post that explains she was teaching in Canada. If you didn’t miss that, try to think of the situation in reverse: imagine the outrage you’d feel if a British teacher came to the US and marked students down for writing “color”, “rumor”, “theater”, etc.
So was I. However, I’ve known from childhood that the British and others in the Commonwealth spell certain words differently from how they’re spelled in America. I am also intelligent enough to look in a locally-produced dictionary when I’m not sure of a spelling.
I don’t know if you intended your remarks as a slander of the American educational system, but they can certainly be taken that way. In any event, the fact she went to American schools does not explain or excuse her behavior.
Well, it was, once: Federal Republic of Central America.
So, if you were a teacher (before reading that) and a student asked you if Central America had ever been a country, would you have got the got the answer right, or would you have confidently answered “No”?
Even if you would have known, do you think that every teacher who might happen to passingly allude to central America during a lesson ought to be expected to know that? Do you think that they ought to allow themselves to be diverted from whatever they are supposed to be teaching (supposing it is not actually a class on the history of Central America) in order to expound on the detailed history of the region?
Someone who has hung out at the Dope for a while ought to be aware that most questions of any interest do not have simple straightforward answers, but schoolteachers often do not have the luxury of going into the nuances of difficult questions (which would often leave most students bored and baffled anyway).
Of course, if teachers were paid very much better than they are - say at the sort of level that society currently rewards lawyers or doctors (I might have said Wall Street traders, except that I do not think anybody deserves to be rewarded at at the levels many of them attain) - and if they were not routinely subject to the sort of mockery exemplified by this thread, the profession might attract smarter, more knowledgeable and even more motivated people. As things are, most people who have the brains and talents to make excellent teachers are quite rational to decide that they should go elsewhere.
etv, are you trying woush us?
Oh. Well, thank you for clarifying that, at least.
BTW, etv, how is your novel going?
It would mean she’d never read a single non-American English book or she never had the intellectual curiosity to wonder about regional spellings. Either way, poor form.
I have an extremely low opinion of any adult American, teacher or not, who DOESN’T know that Americans have different spellings of certain words than the rest of the English speakers of the world. For an ENGLISH teacher to be this ignorant boggles my mind.
:smack::smack::smack::smack::smack::smack::smack::smack::smack::smack::smack:
Someone had no business teaching science…
My daughter’s 7th grade English teacher here in Georgia is black.
She says “axe” instead of “ask”. As I find this unacceptable in general use, it is particularly vexing coming from a teacher, though not unexpected from a southern black.
We had a discussion with the principal where she tried to defend ax as a colloquialism and therefore perfectly acceptable. The end result was she would speak correctly, or not teach English.
Last month, she punished my daughter for correcting her. The teacher insisted that “tow-headed” meant “slow”, or “simple”. My daughter explained that it meant blonde. Her retort was “Well, I’m the teacher, so I think I know more than you.”, and made her write a paper on not questioning authority.
I was livid.
Bottom line is Ms. “Axe” is no longer employed by our school district.
Nice rant.
The Central American federal republic fell apart in the first half of the nineteenth century. Is it really too much to ask that a teacher in North America would know of the existence of its modern-day successor states? This is basic stuff!
Would asserting that Canada was ruled by the British be an acceptable error?
For many descriptivists, including me, axe is a colloquialism and therefore perfectly acceptable. The English language does not consist of a single dialect. The students could have learned that people speak the same language in all different ways, that there are certain ways of speaking and writing that are associated with certain classes and power structures and that must be learned if one is to excel, but that it’s basically an arbitrary distinction. There could even have been a discussion about the many different ranges we all use - how we speak at home vs. how we speak to our bosses at work. Then your kid would have learned ‘‘proper’’ English in a more realistic context that didn’t blatantly disregard her teacher’s culture.
Seems like a missed learning opportunity to me.
(ETA: I have to admit the bit about ‘‘not questioning authority’’ is pretty ironic - that would have pissed me off most of all.)
It is frankly bizarre that you think this is an unreasonable expectation.
AND she’s teaching in Canada. Which, jokes to the contrary, really is a foreign country if you grew up in America. I wouldn’t teach writing in France without learning how to spell in French, and I can’t see why you would teach writing in Canada without learning how to spell in Canadian-English. 
However, I will say this about that: this is one reason why I hate the newish trend of there being “North American versions” of English books, like Harry Potter. I knew that they spell it “colour” because I read books as a kid where it was spelled “colour”. I expect the problem this teacher had to become only more widespread as this generation of American kids grows up without having to decode “bonnet” (of a car), “lift” (an elevator) or “flat” (apartment) or seeing British spellings in their books. I think it’s a poor practice to *decrease *our kids’ vocabulary and increase inter-cultural misunderstandings.
With the Harry Potter books, I believe they changed the spelling throughout the series for the American versions, but only in the first book are the word usages changed. After that, the originals are retained.
In general I agree with you, though.
I’m sorry but…Oh Snap.
I had a grade school teacher who told us that Mars was bigger than Earth and had higher gravity. Another teact belived that Mars had a civilization in the distant past that built canals, pyramids, and of course the Face on Mars.
Mercury IS dangerous, but the form that you encounter it in matters. Elemental mercury (“quicksilver”, the stuff used in thermometers and barometers) is not a major culprit in most mercury poisoning cases. It isn’t nearly as dangerous as mercury vapor, which is absorbed into the bloodstream much more efficiently. Mercury compounds are also much more hazardous - these are what accumulate in fish.
Your teacher definitely shouldn’t have been too cavalier about cleaning up the mercury, however, or saying that it’s “perfectly safe.” Even quicksilver can produce vapor over time and it’s generally not the best idea to leave it exposed to the air you’re breathing for too long.
I have copies of “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” in both American and Canadian editions, and the Canadian version uses British spelling and phrases; the American one is “dumbed down” to American English. I kept the American version close by while I read the Canadian one, in case I came across a word or phrase that I didn’t know or couldn’t infer by context. Reading British English doesn’t bother me much, having read Tolkien and a lot of Wodehouse. I enjoy knowing how others use our common language. 
Hm, I can’t remember where I read the opposite. Thanks for the info.