Random Poll of the 33 Days Ago! (945)

[pofa]

Kindergarten. She made me cry at least once a week because she scolded me for not being able to do things like tie my shoe or cut shapes out of paper as fast as the other kids, and because she scolded me for the things I could do faster than the others, like read and write, because I wasn't learning things "in the right order." It was impossible to win with her. I felt like I couldn't do anything right at all for the whole year.

[Callid]

Kindergarten. She made me cry at least once a week because she scolded me for not being able to do things like tie my shoe or cut shapes out of paper as fast as the other kids, and because she scolded me for the things I could do faster than the others, like read and write, because I wasn't learning things "in the right order." It was impossible to win with her. I felt like I couldn't do anything right at all for the whole year.

That sounds... awful -.-

[mangaluva]

Kindergarten. She made me cry at least once a week because she scolded me for not being able to do things like tie my shoe or cut shapes out of paper as fast as the other kids, and because she scolded me for the things I could do faster than the others, like read and write, because I wasn't learning things "in the right order." It was impossible to win with her. I felt like I couldn't do anything right at all for the whole year.

That's atrocious. They let a woman like that teach Kindergarten? That's scarred-for-life material right there.

I had a woman like that teaching English for a year in High School. There was a guy in my class who was dyslexic, not severely dyslexic but he could be slow when reading aloud, especially Shakespeare. They give teachers notes about shit like this. She knew he was dyslexic. But she still constantly got on his case for reading too slow, often calling him "dumb", and this made him so stressed and nervous that he wouldn't be able to read at all.

At the same time, she got on people's cases a lot for disagreeing with her opinions in our personal essays, even though those of us who disagreed tended to be the ones who'd actually read the material rather than just parroting her notes on it. She said we were "showing off" for actually engaging with the material. (To this day I still remain firm in my belief that Beatrice and Benedick are awesome while Claudio and Hero are about as romantic as Romeo and Juliet. The former are snarky as all hell towards each other, which makes them really funny to read, and have a really strong relationship based on mutual respect and intelligence, while Claudio is a dimshit who can't tell his wife apart from her maids and Hero is a spineless loser who takes this dimshit back even after he dumps her at the alter for no reason and when she fakes her death he agrees to marry her cousin because that will somehow make it better.)

Anyway, she had a huge row with the dyslexic guy's mum at the end-of-year parent-teacher conference and ended up getting fired, so at least some faith in humanity was retained.

[pofa]

Spoiler: At both

Yeah. :/ Now that I've been a teacher myself, I realize that I would have been a hard kid to teach in kindergarten. I was born in the summer, so I had just barely turned five when I entered kindergarten, and I really wasn't socially or emotionally ready to go. But my academic scores said I should go, so my parents went ahead and sent me. So she ended up getting a really overemotional kid that could read already but had no motor or spatial reasoning skills, which was probably frustrating on all levels. But she lost her temper way too often. Some kids are hard to deal with, but if you can't do anything about it but snap and yell, get out of kindergarten teaching

As an example, I sang a solo in front of the school at our kindergarten graduation, which took place in the morning. I have footage of me going up to the microphone in tears, and my music teacher asking me if I was nervous about the solo. I said no like I didn't even know what she was talking about and sang it fine. Later I told mom I was crying because I forgot to bring my snack that day and I was dreading getting told I was stupid by the teacher later.

It's kind of crazy, reading through all the responses, how bad a teacher can scar you. Even if it was a little thing, you still remember it years later.

[mangaluva]

It wasn't your fault. Teachers are supposed to be trained to handle kids of all capabilities. They are never supposed to insult or denigrate children, ever, because they're a major developmental influence and that can be a damaging thing for a child and they are supposed to know that.

That kind of thing pisses me off infinitely more with kindergarten and primary school teachers than with high school teachers because their developmental influence is much greater, but really no teacher should be allowed to keep teaching if they're like that to kids.

/endrant

[Callid]

Kindergarten. She made me cry at least once a week because she scolded me for not being able to do things like tie my shoe or cut shapes out of paper as fast as the other kids, and because she scolded me for the things I could do faster than the others, like read and write, because I wasn't learning things "in the right order." It was impossible to win with her. I felt like I couldn't do anything right at all for the whole year.

That's atrocious. They let a woman like that teach Kindergarten? That's scarred-for-life material right there.

I had a woman like that teaching English for a year in High School. There was a guy in my class who was dyslexic, not severely dyslexic but he could be slow when reading aloud, especially Shakespeare. They give teachers notes about shit like this. She knew he was dyslexic. But she still constantly got on his case for reading too slow, often calling him "dumb", and this made him so stressed and nervous that he wouldn't be able to read at all.

Is there no rule that spelling/reading doesn't get graded for (tested) dyslexics in the UK?
I have a bit of experience with that, as my brother is dyslexic, and for him, spelling mistakes and that kind of stuff simply doesn't get graded. It's just content and stuff like grammar and word choice.

[KangarooGirl]

Yeah it's worse where I grew up because caning is the norm in terms of punishment. I know someone who has dyslexia (relatively mild but still dyslexia) as well as attention deficit disorder who got caned daily because she couldn't read very well, skipped lines/words and had trouble paying attention in class. This was in YEAR 1 Needless to say, her grades were never great because she hated school as a result and never tried even though she's got an above average IQ. Literally failed or almost failed every class until her parents finally sent her overseas. Even then she almost didn't get into college because she didn't have a lot of the basic stuff but had to catch up. So yeah, thanks for screwing up her entire future, Miss.

[Stopwatch]

Kindergarten. She made me cry at least once a week because she scolded me for not being able to do things like tie my shoe or cut shapes out of paper as fast as the other kids, and because she scolded me for the things I could do faster than the others, like read and write, because I wasn't learning things "in the right order." It was impossible to win with her. I felt like I couldn't do anything right at all for the whole year.

That's atrocious. They let a woman like that teach Kindergarten? That's scarred-for-life material right there.

I had a woman like that teaching English for a year in High School. There was a guy in my class who was dyslexic, not severely dyslexic but he could be slow when reading aloud, especially Shakespeare. They give teachers notes about shit like this. She knew he was dyslexic. But she still constantly got on his case for reading too slow, often calling him "dumb", and this made him so stressed and nervous that he wouldn't be able to read at all.

Is there no rule that spelling/reading doesn't get graded for (tested) dyslexics in the UK?
I have a bit of experience with that, as my brother is dyslexic, and for him, spelling mistakes and that kind of stuff simply doesn't get graded. It's just content and stuff like grammar and word choice.

Not sure how similar it is in Scotland (education in the UK isn't all the same, England and Wales do GCSEs, Scotland does something else and I'm not sure about N. Ireland), but in England teachers tend to do things like printing stuff out in certain colours 'cause apparently that can help and during tests (as in, the proper exams as well as internal tests) they get more time to account for reading stuff and so on. Actually, it's pretty worrying that spelling doesn't tend to get graded normally (with the exception of a few extra marks for good grammar and so on in QWC questions which I think has only been brought in fairly recently anyway, and some English assessments). Too many of the people in the top English sets are terrible at spelling (I mean, I'm not the best in the world, but I'm nowhere near as bad as some of them) but they're still in the top sets and not much is done to try to get them to improve spelling. I kinda wish they'd mark for spelling and grammar in other subjects though in order to try to get it through :x. I don't know how being dyslexic is accounted for outside of extra time and the different colours thing though, sorry.
The teacher Manga's talking about though, if she's been told then she really shouldn't be saying things like that :/. Guess enough other people thought so if she ended up fired though. I doubt a teacher would be fired off one instance like that (though I don't know the exact details so I'm mostly guessing here) so it's very possible other stuff had been going on with other people.

[Callid]

Is there no rule that spelling/reading doesn't get graded for (tested) dyslexics in the UK?
I have a bit of experience with that, as my brother is dyslexic, and for him, spelling mistakes and that kind of stuff simply doesn't get graded. It's just content and stuff like grammar and word choice.

Not sure how similar it is in Scotland (education in the UK isn't all the same, England and Wales do GCSEs, Scotland does something else and I'm not sure about N. Ireland), but in England teachers tend to do things like printing stuff out in certain colours 'cause apparently that can help and during tests (as in, the proper exams as well as internal tests) they get more time to account for reading stuff and so on. Actually, it's pretty worrying that spelling doesn't tend to get graded normally (with the exception of a few extra marks for good grammar and so on in QWC questions which I think has only been brought in fairly recently anyway, and some English assessments). Too many of the people in the top English sets are terrible at spelling (I mean, I'm not the best in the world, but I'm nowhere near as bad as some of them) but they're still in the top sets and not much is done to try to get them to improve spelling. I kinda wish they'd mark for spelling and grammar in other subjects though in order to try to get it through :x. I don't know how being dyslexic is accounted for outside of extra time and the different colours thing though, sorry.
The teacher Manga's talking about though, if she's been told then she really shouldn't be saying things like that :/. Guess enough other people thought so if she ended up fired though. I doubt a teacher would be fired off one instance like that (though I don't know the exact details so I'm mostly guessing here) so it's very possible other stuff had been going on with other people.

I suppose the spelling stuff is worse in English than it is in German (which is mostly write-how-you-speak) - I don't really think that there are a notable amount of non-dyslexics who have any trouble spelling at the end of Gymnasium, and the few issues still around tend to be awfully minor things like das/dass (=that/that), which aren't even always noted by experts (and sometimes, experts get stuff wrong, like my German teacher, who marked my "Sonntagmorgen" (Sunday morning) as wrong, and thought it should have been "Sonntag morgen")

[mangaluva]

I think in my high school English exams got graded differently for dyslexics depending on how severe their dyslexia was. In my University, dyslexic students get an extra week for essays and get a lot more assistance from the lecturers.

[Kleene Onigiri]

Kindergarten. She made me cry at least once a week because she scolded me for not being able to do things like tie my shoe or cut shapes out of paper as fast as the other kids, and because she scolded me for the things I could do faster than the others, like read and write, because I wasn't learning things "in the right order." It was impossible to win with her. I felt like I couldn't do anything right at all for the whole year.

That's atrocious. They let a woman like that teach Kindergarten? That's scarred-for-life material right there.

I had a woman like that teaching English for a year in High School. There was a guy in my class who was dyslexic, not severely dyslexic but he could be slow when reading aloud, especially Shakespeare. They give teachers notes about shit like this. She knew he was dyslexic. But she still constantly got on his case for reading too slow, often calling him "dumb", and this made him so stressed and nervous that he wouldn't be able to read at all.

Is there no rule that spelling/reading doesn't get graded for (tested) dyslexics in the UK?
I have a bit of experience with that, as my brother is dyslexic, and for him, spelling mistakes and that kind of stuff simply doesn't get graded. It's just content and stuff like grammar and word choice.

Not sure how similar it is in Scotland (education in the UK isn't all the same, England and Wales do GCSEs, Scotland does something else and I'm not sure about N. Ireland), but in England teachers tend to do things like printing stuff out in certain colours 'cause apparently that can help and during tests (as in, the proper exams as well as internal tests) they get more time to account for reading stuff and so on. Actually, it's pretty worrying that spelling doesn't tend to get graded normally (with the exception of a few extra marks for good grammar and so on in QWC questions which I think has only been brought in fairly recently anyway, and some English assessments). Too many of the people in the top English sets are terrible at spelling (I mean, I'm not the best in the world, but I'm nowhere near as bad as some of them) but they're still in the top sets and not much is done to try to get them to improve spelling. I kinda wish they'd mark for spelling and grammar in other subjects though in order to try to get it through :x. I don't know how being dyslexic is accounted for outside of extra time and the different colours thing though, sorry.
The teacher Manga's talking about though, if she's been told then she really shouldn't be saying things like that :/. Guess enough other people thought so if she ended up fired though. I doubt a teacher would be fired off one instance like that (though I don't know the exact details so I'm mostly guessing here) so it's very possible other stuff had been going on with other people.

Spelling should never be marked and count in other subjects.

[Stopwatch]

Kindergarten. She made me cry at least once a week because she scolded me for not being able to do things like tie my shoe or cut shapes out of paper as fast as the other kids, and because she scolded me for the things I could do faster than the others, like read and write, because I wasn't learning things "in the right order." It was impossible to win with her. I felt like I couldn't do anything right at all for the whole year.

That's atrocious. They let a woman like that teach Kindergarten? That's scarred-for-life material right there.

I had a woman like that teaching English for a year in High School. There was a guy in my class who was dyslexic, not severely dyslexic but he could be slow when reading aloud, especially Shakespeare. They give teachers notes about shit like this. She knew he was dyslexic. But she still constantly got on his case for reading too slow, often calling him "dumb", and this made him so stressed and nervous that he wouldn't be able to read at all.

Is there no rule that spelling/reading doesn't get graded for (tested) dyslexics in the UK?
I have a bit of experience with that, as my brother is dyslexic, and for him, spelling mistakes and that kind of stuff simply doesn't get graded. It's just content and stuff like grammar and word choice.

Not sure how similar it is in Scotland (education in the UK isn't all the same, England and Wales do GCSEs, Scotland does something else and I'm not sure about N. Ireland), but in England teachers tend to do things like printing stuff out in certain colours 'cause apparently that can help and during tests (as in, the proper exams as well as internal tests) they get more time to account for reading stuff and so on. Actually, it's pretty worrying that spelling doesn't tend to get graded normally (with the exception of a few extra marks for good grammar and so on in QWC questions which I think has only been brought in fairly recently anyway, and some English assessments). Too many of the people in the top English sets are terrible at spelling (I mean, I'm not the best in the world, but I'm nowhere near as bad as some of them) but they're still in the top sets and not much is done to try to get them to improve spelling. I kinda wish they'd mark for spelling and grammar in other subjects though in order to try to get it through :x. I don't know how being dyslexic is accounted for outside of extra time and the different colours thing though, sorry.
The teacher Manga's talking about though, if she's been told then she really shouldn't be saying things like that :/. Guess enough other people thought so if she ended up fired though. I doubt a teacher would be fired off one instance like that (though I don't know the exact details so I'm mostly guessing here) so it's very possible other stuff had been going on with other people.

Spelling should never be marked and count in other subjects.

It would help improve the quality of it IMO. Spelling should be so basic you don't even need to try to get those marks. It's frustrating when people are still mixing up 'there' and 'their' and don't keep consistent even within their own spelling rules on the same page (stuff like whether you use 'focusing' or 'focussing'). Though, I kinda doubt anyone will be marked for their spelling in Maths :V.

[Kleene Onigiri]

No, it still shouldn't Because that's not what the test is aiming to check whether you can do that.
Same with basic multiplication etc. not being asked in English tests. Sure, that would definitely also help improve basic math, but that's still not what the subject english is about and not what the tests should be about.

You can also apply that to other subjects besides math. Lie you wouldn't get asked to name important dates that happened in history during english or during biology. Because that's simply not what the subject is about and also not what the students would study for (even it it is basic stuff you should know)

[Stopwatch]

No, it still shouldn't Because that's not what the test is aiming to check whether you can do that.
Same with basic multiplication etc. not being asked in English tests. Sure, that would definitely also help improve basic math, but that's still not what the subject english is about and not what the tests should be about.

You can also apply that to other subjects besides math. Lie you wouldn't get asked to name important dates that happened in history during english or during biology. Because that's simply not what the subject is about and also not what the students would study for (even it it is basic stuff you should know)

The difference is that while multiplication and historical facts aren't used everywhere, language is. If someone is writing an essay, then they are not only talking about history, geography, biology or whatever, they are also supposed to be correctly structuring what they're writing and spelling it correctly too. An essay or 12 mark question or whatever is *a piece of writing* so it should be written as one.

[Kleene Onigiri]

No, it still shouldn't Because that's not what the test is aiming to check whether you can do that.
Same with basic multiplication etc. not being asked in English tests. Sure, that would definitely also help improve basic math, but that's still not what the subject english is about and not what the tests should be about.

You can also apply that to other subjects besides math. Lie you wouldn't get asked to name important dates that happened in history during english or during biology. Because that's simply not what the subject is about and also not what the students would study for (even it it is basic stuff you should know)

The difference is that while multiplication and historical facts aren't used everywhere, language is. If someone is writing an essay, then they are not only talking about history, geography, biology or whatever, they are also supposed to be correctly structuring what they're writing and spelling it correctly too. An essay or 12 mark question or whatever is *a piece of writing* so it should be written as one.

But that's still not what the test is testing you on. So you can't take that into account for the grade. Otherwise the test looses validity.