"Americans Are Lazy"

swampwitch

TCS Member
Thread starter
Top Cat
Joined
Sep 30, 2006
Messages
7,753
Purraise
158
Location
Tall Trees & Cold Seas Vancouver Island
Our daughter's regular Grade 4 teacher had to leave because of a medical emergency, and is supposed to be back after Christmas. A new teacher has been hired for November and December.

New teacher was giving the children their spelling words, telling them to make sure and put in the necessary u's in words like behaviour, colour, etc. Then she says, "Americans are lazy because they don't put those extra letters in their words."

She obviously didn't know that there was a little dual citizen in her class who has an American mother! This teacher is terrible in a multitude of ways and I found this comment very offensive! It is so wrong on all kinds of levels. Why would she try to plant a bad seed like this?

Guess this is my daughter's first bad teacher.
 

lunasmom

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Sep 7, 2005
Messages
8,801
Purraise
12
Location
Jersey Shore
That's it...I'm requesting a war with Canada
just kidding.

That's too bad that your daughter's teacher is planting information like that in her children's minds.
 

arlyn

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
May 9, 2005
Messages
9,306
Purraise
50
Location
Needles, CA
It's not laziness, it's simply the difference between the Queen's English and American English.
It's basically a dialect complete with it's own coloquialisms.

Personally, I'd complain to the principal about this, as not only is it offensive, but it is breeding prejudice in children.
 

duchess15

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Nov 23, 2006
Messages
3,825
Purraise
14
Location
Wishing I were anywhere but here
Originally Posted by Arlyn

It's not laziness, it's simply the difference between the Queen's English and American English.
It's basically a dialect complete with it's own coloquialisms.

Personally, I'd complain to the principal about this, as not only is it offensive, but it is breeding prejudice in children.
It's not only offensive, but also prejudice since she considers one more accurate over the other. I just hope it doesn't turn into a cultural bashing session. All cultures are unique and just because one does not spell the same for all english dialects, does not make it incorrect.
 

starryeyedtiger

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Apr 5, 2005
Messages
22,317
Purraise
20
Location
USA
Originally Posted by Arlyn

It's not laziness, it's simply the difference between the Queen's English and American English.
It's basically a dialect complete with it's own coloquialisms.

Personally, I'd complain to the principal about this, as not only is it offensive, but it is breeding prejudice in children.
I would say something to the principal about the rude teacher's comments. She shouldn't be allowed around the children saying those things to them.
 

dragoriana

MajesticFloof
Top Cat
Joined
Aug 20, 2006
Messages
4,092
Purraise
543
Ditto to the spelling thing not being lazy. You guys spell and pronounce things differently, over here we have the queen's English, which i am very happy with, makes me feel more at home
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #10

swampwitch

TCS Member
Thread starter
Top Cat
Joined
Sep 30, 2006
Messages
7,753
Purraise
158
Location
Tall Trees & Cold Seas Vancouver Island
Sometimes teachers forget the tremendous amount of power their words have. I can't complain to the principal just yet, but will when the time is right.

Thank you for all the responses!
 

MoochNNoodles

TCS Member
Veteran
Joined
Apr 30, 2005
Messages
36,646
Purraise
23,468
Location
Where my cats are
I'm sorry your daughter has a teacher like that. I know I had one awful one in the second grade. I guess there are just people like that out there...but those people should stay out of the education field if you ask me!
 

theimp98

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
May 24, 2006
Messages
11,427
Purraise
2
Location
elyria, ohio
Originally Posted by StarryEyedTiGeR

I would say something to the principal about the rude teacher's comments. She shouldn't be allowed around the children saying those things to them.
I would also be having a conversation with the teacher.

you could tell the teacher that she should learn to read,
since reports show us workersa re the most productive.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070902/un_la...vity.html?.v=6
 

stacyd1987

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Jun 15, 2007
Messages
1,883
Purraise
2
Location
Fayetteville, NC
Originally Posted by SwampWitch

Sometimes teachers forget the tremendous amount of power their words have. I can't complain to the principal just yet, but will when the time is right.

Thank you for all the responses!
Just because you have one bad experience with a person from a different country doesn't mean they're all like that. Sure, our culture has been majorly influenced by speed texting and shorthand but that doesn't mean we all have lost our knowledge of the English language.
Maybe a parent-teacher conference is in order?
 

sohni

TCS Member
Super Cat
Joined
Oct 2, 2007
Messages
941
Purraise
11
Location
Vancouver Island, BC
Guess I am Canadian and stereotypically laid back, I don't find it offensive at all. I wonder what the context was, it could easily have been an attempt at humoUr.
 

green bunny

TCS Member
Alpha Cat
Joined
Mar 23, 2007
Messages
625
Purraise
1
Location
Here and there
I'd complain now and nip it in the bud. Even if it was an attempt at humor, as Sohni suggested, it was a poor one. I'm guessing Grade 4 kids to be about 9 or 10, and kids misunderstand things like that all the time through no fault of their own. All teachers should know better because they know their words have such influence and power over children.

How awful it must have been for you daughter to sit there and realize that her teacher, an adult she is expected to respect and trust especially because of her position, just told her (unknowingly, of course) that she is "lazy" just because she is half American. Honestly, that teacher owes your daughter an apology.

I remember in high school a teacher told me I couldn't write about hippies for an assignment because "all hippies were drug users" and therefore not good or noble people. My parents had been hippies, so obviously I was very upset by that, and my parents were furious. I was 15. We had a meeting and early on I realized the complete futility of getting our complaint taken seriously.

The teacher backpedaled, the principal agreed with her and they tried to make it look like I had misunderstood. She said that she had only meant that I could not write about the hippie movement because it was too big for the assignment since it encompassed a large number of people. I asked her then why Greenpeace was acceptable to write about since it had thousands of members. She had no answer for that. Greenpeace had been one of her suggestions for the assignment. This was about 1998 or 1999, so it certainly wasn't small then.

Still, all of our concerns and compaints were made to seem insignificant and were dismissed. God, I hated high school.

Anyway, I hope your complaint is taken seriously, because it really should be.

Tricia
 

siggav

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Mar 26, 2007
Messages
1,327
Purraise
22
Location
Scotland
I definately read it as a somewhat bad joke. I doubt true offence was ment or that the teacher thinks Americans are lazy.

Doesn't change the fact though that it probably shouldn't be told to children by their teacher since they might not get the joke and teachers have quite a lot of authority over the children.

I don't think it's worth making a huge stink about though, more a pointer and bring up that jokes like that are not really appropriate.
 

valanhb

TCS Member
Veteran
Joined
Mar 2, 2002
Messages
32,530
Purraise
100
Location
Lakewood (Denver suburb), Colorado
Unless she is obviously American, even if it was meant as a bad joke, she really didn't have the right to make the joke. It's kind of like railing on your family, but as soon as someone outside your family makes the same joke you'll defend your family to the death. If you're not in the group in question it becomes a put-down and not a joke (ie. Imus' "joke" about the Rutgers Basketball players - had he been black it wouldn't have been disrespectful, but since he's an older white man it was).

I would at least talk to the teacher about this now. It is very likely that she did mean it as a joke not knowing that it could be taken as an insult by one of the children. Hopefully she would watch what she says for the last month she's here.

It really is horrible having a bad teacher. I always felt like I missed out on a large chunk of History class because we had a long-term substitute who didn't know anything about History. We were studying and American Civil War and she didn't know who Jefferson Davis was! (He was the President of the Confederate States.)
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #19

swampwitch

TCS Member
Thread starter
Top Cat
Joined
Sep 30, 2006
Messages
7,753
Purraise
158
Location
Tall Trees & Cold Seas Vancouver Island
Originally Posted by Sohni

Guess I am Canadian and stereotypically laid back, I don't find it offensive at all. I wonder what the context was, it could easily have been an attempt at humoUr.
It was a derogatory joke, aimed at an audience who would not get the joke, and who would end up taking what she said at face value. I'll bet every nine-year old in the class took what their teacher said as a fact.

Imagine any teacher telling a classroom of students:

First Nations people are lazy because _____.
Females are lazy because _____.
Jesus and his followers were lazy because _____.
Writers are lazy because _____.
Jewish people are lazy because _____.
French Canadians are lazy because _____.

I find it offensive for a teacher to negatively stereotype groups of people to her students.
 

luvmy2cats

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Jul 22, 2007
Messages
4,616
Purraise
11
Location
Goshen, IN
I'm not trying to defend this teacher but it sounds like the comment came falling out of her mouth without her thinking of it's affect. It's a stupid comment anyway. Who gives a flyin doodle if a U is in a word. It's still pronounced the same and means the same thing.
 
Top