DC's teacher says axing...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I am blown away by this. You must have an enormous amount of free time on your hands--and no need for self-improvement--if you think a mispronunciation is worth this kind of time and effort.

My husband had a teacher in elementary school who said "poim" instead of poem. He actually did come home pronouncing it that way. His parents (one of whom was a teacher) laughed, corrected him, and moved on with their lives.

A little perspective, people.

I'm blown away that you're blown away. How often did the teacher day poim? Several times a day for the whole school year, the way a teacher says axing? If I were either of those teachers, I'd hope someone would have enough courage and concern to correct me instead of talking about me behind my back and leaving me to repeat the error to another generation of students.

Wow, I hadn't realized that "poim" was that offensive--I thought it was a perfectly acceptable regionalism. My mom's family--highly-educated white Virginians--all say it this way.

I'm the original "poim" poster, and this is really the point, isn't it? It's a big country with lots of people who speak in lots of different ways, and there are lots of opinions on what is acceptable. It is insane--and ignorant--to focus on a single perceived mispronunciation. Please, OP, try to see the forest for the trees. Is this teacher reaching your child? Is your child engaged and stimulated? Is your child learning and enjoying it?

You're focusing on a single perceived mispronunciation. The forest here is the possibility that there are grammatical errors as well. If not, I agree with you that the pronunciation of one word is not all-important. If other errors are being made, I think the poster has legitimate concerns.

[Anonymous]

You realize that not only will you embarrass her but she will find out it is you and hate you for it. Is that worth it? And don't think it won't subtley effect her interactions with you or your child. It definitely will. I this one word is worth then please go ahead. But as a teacher, I would hate you and still pronounce it the way I want in my class and maybe change it when you're around. Maybe. You can't police me all day. Get a life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You realize that not only will you embarrass her but she will find out it is you and hate you for it. Is that worth it? And don't think it won't subtley effect her interactions with you or your child. It definitely will. I this one word is worth then please go ahead. But as a teacher, I would hate you and still pronounce it the way I want in my class and maybe change it when you're around. Maybe. You can't police me all day. Get a life.

Those two words should be spelled "subtly affect." Also, the comments in bold are rather extreme for a teacher. Remember, you should speak and act as a professional. You're setting an example for your students. Don't allow comments from parents to contribute to negative interactions with a child.

[Anonymous]

Ah teachers. Gotta love the parents backseat driving not only instruction, but now speech patterns and apparently spelling (guess what, teachers do, or don't use spell check just like you). Ax/Ask is REALLY borderline for me (teacher here) I see it as more dubious in a community where the kids' parents also say ax--it's probably helpful for those kids to hear or have highlighted the 'paycheck pronunciation' (love that!). YOUR kid will be fine since you are doing this job at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ah teachers. Gotta love the parents backseat driving not only instruction, but now speech patterns and apparently spelling (guess what, teachers do, or don't use spell check just like you). Ax/Ask is REALLY borderline for me (teacher here) I see it as more dubious in a community where the kids' parents also say ax--it's probably helpful for those kids to hear or have highlighted the 'paycheck pronunciation' (love that!). YOUR kid will be fine since you are doing this job at home.

Nope. You can't talk away the poster's use of affect/effect and other spelling errors, as well as the point of his/her comment. All very negative. And, yes, I realize I'm not using complete sentences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ah teachers. Gotta love the parents backseat driving not only instruction, but now speech patterns and apparently spelling (guess what, teachers do, or don't use spell check just like you). Ax/Ask is REALLY borderline for me (teacher here) I see it as more dubious in a community where the kids' parents also say ax--it's probably helpful for those kids to hear or have highlighted the 'paycheck pronunciation' (love that!). YOUR kid will be fine since you are doing this job at home.

This is NOT a borderline issue. It is just not professional behavior. It is not due to a lack of knowing how to pronounce the word correctly. It is willful mispronunciation. If the fear is retribution from the teacher then the message needs to get to anonymously. As a teacher, it is my job to set a high standard for my students to follow. If I am mispronouncing a commonly used word, although I would be mortified, I would hope that someone would set me straight (in a nice way ).

[Anonymous]

If the teacher wasn't AA, how long would this be tolerated?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:[
Consider that the teacher is missing out on an opportunity to improve her elocution and her students' understanding, something any good teacher would want to take a crack at.

In your opinion it's not. As evidenced by the PP in this thread who hates her son's Polish teacher and other PPs, some people consider mispronunciations to be inexcusable for any teacher, whether or not English is their first language.


As evidenced on this thread, there are extremes on either side -but reasonable, educated people can hopefully see beyond those and not let them affect recognition of the fact that axing is incorrect and is unlike a foreign accent and unlike a rarely mentioned dinosaur's name.

If the teacher could learn not to say axing, both she and her students would be at least a little better off - but if she is not advised about it, it will certainly continue.

[Anonymous]

It's the small things that can piss-people off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ah teachers. Gotta love the parents backseat driving not only instruction, but now speech patterns and apparently spelling (guess what, teachers do, or don't use spell check just like you). Ax/Ask is REALLY borderline for me (teacher here) I see it as more dubious in a community where the kids' parents also say ax--it's probably helpful for those kids to hear or have highlighted the 'paycheck pronunciation' (love that!). YOUR kid will be fine since you are doing this job at home.

This is NOT a borderline issue. It is just not professional behavior. It is not due to a lack of knowing how to pronounce the word correctly. It is willful mispronunciation. If the fear is retribution from the teacher then the message needs to get to anonymously. As a teacher, it is my job to set a high standard for my students to follow. If I am mispronouncing a commonly used word, although I would be mortified, I would hope that someone would set me straight (in a nice way ).

Agreed - except that it may not be willful mispronuciation -- it may be something she's done all her life and nobody bothered to help her with once she became a teacher.

I might be mortiified too, if told after many years that I'd been pronouncing a common word incorrectly. I'd also be angry about all the people who didn't have the courage or interest to tell me sooner and relieved that I wasn't going to embarrass myself in this way any longer.

Irrespective of a particular person's reaction to being informed of such an error, in the case of a teacher repeating it to students every day, it must be done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You realize that not only will you embarrass her but she will find out it is you and hate you for it. Is that worth it? And don't think it won't subtley effect her interactions with you or your child. It definitely will. I this one word is worth then please go ahead. But as a teacher, I would hate you and still pronounce it the way I want in my class and maybe change it when you're around. Maybe. You can't police me all day. Get a life.

Hopefully this petty and vindictive attitude is rare among teachers. Too bad IMPACT doesn't rate this kind of behavior. Any system would be better off without teachers who would purposely continue to make errors just to get back at someone who corrected them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ah teachers. Gotta love the parents backseat driving not only instruction, but now speech patterns and apparently spelling (guess what, teachers do, or don't use spell check just like you). Ax/Ask is REALLY borderline for me (teacher here) I see it as more dubious in a community where the kids' parents also say ax--it's probably helpful for those kids to hear or have highlighted the 'paycheck pronunciation' (love that!). YOUR kid will be fine since you are doing this job at home.

Guess what, in my professional capacity, I use spell check and expect others to as well. When an occasional error slips through, it's recognized as an error and corrected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If the teacher wasn't AA, how long would this be tolerated?

Did I miss a post. Did OP state that the teacher was AA. Or did everyone automatically assume teacher was AA. BTW, I lived in the south for ten years. I have family in Durham, Savannah, and Raleigh. White folks say ax also.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I once corrected a white American saying "had went" in a toast masters meeting. I was the grammarian of the day at the meeting. He didn't seem to care that I (a non-white, non-native speaker) was telling him that he made a grammatical mistake. From his reaction, I bet no one had ever told him that before and I hope he'd pay attention the next time(s) he used the phrase again.

You were at a meeting of a group specifically for public speaking, and the group encourages correction of grammatical mistakes.

Not the same as the axing teacher situation, but similar. The teacher's primary role is to educate. Many people think that teachers should be encouraged to correctly pronounce commonly used words.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You realize that not only will you embarrass her but she will find out it is you and hate you for it. Is that worth it? And don't think it won't subtley effect her interactions with you or your child. It definitely will. I this one word is worth then please go ahead. But as a teacher, I would hate you and still pronounce it the way I want in my class and maybe change it when you're around. Maybe. You can't police me all day. Get a life.

You have a terrible attitude and don't deserve to be teaching.