Parent Refuses to Punish Child for Correcting Teacher

Every parent wants to make sure their children get the best education available. Not everyone can afford private schooling, so they have to trust that the parents at state schools are competent enough to teach their children about the world and how it works. After an incident at school, a parent wanted to find out if she, or her son, had overreacted in an altercation with his teacher.

Speaking Up? Or, Out of Turn?

The mother in question wrote about her son’s incident at school involving his teacher. He is only ten years old and is already confident enough to speak up about something he knows is right or not right. His teacher showed them some Snoopy cartoons depicting Woodstock eating a turkey. “My 10 year old son had to watch some snoopy cartoon in class. During which Woodstock eats a roast turkey,” wrote the mom.

She continued o to describe how the teacher interrupted the cartoon to remind her students that this was not a real depiction because birds do not eat other birds. She wrote: “The teacher told the class that this is fictional, and that birds don’t eat other birds.”

According to the Reddit post, this mother’s son had an uncle who trained birds. Their job was to hunt other birds to protect the airplanes. He decided to voice his knowledge, ultimately correcting his teacher in front of the class. “My son corrected her and said something along the lines of “My uncle trains falcons to hunt other birds at the airport to protect the airplanes.”

Sent to the Principle

Her son’s correction did not sit well with the teacher. According to the mother’s post, the teacher got angry at her son for “talking back.” She told her son that he was being “disrespectful.”

So, the teacher sent him to see the principal. This is usually done for something of a pretty serious nature. The mother was also called to come and see the principal so they could discuss the incident. “I got called and they explained the situation,” read her post. The principal of the school explained, “that he corrected the teacher.”

The mother presumably expected a situation far worse than her son correcting his teacher. She asked the principal, “well was he right?” However, the principal did not care whether her son was correct, only that he had disrespected his teacher. He wanted the mom to punish her child for the so-called wrongdoing. The mother’s post read: “The principal said ‘it doesn’t matter, this was rude and you need to teach your son show some respect to authority.'”

Not the A-Hole

However, this mom did not see any wrong in her son’s actions. In other words, he was simply citing what he knew to be correct and factual. “I told the principal ‘I’m not going to punish my son or make him apologize if he was right. Maybe your teacher should be better educated.’ The principal looked a bit shocked and just told me to leave. Fine by me. Really reconsidering this school.”

There was a resounding opinion in the comments section. Everyone agreed that the mother was not the A-hole for choosing not to punish her son for being correct. One person wrote: “Modern education systems in the west have been about minimising civilian dissent over actual education for decades. Make them just smart enough to contribute to your capitalist society, just dumb enough so they dont rock the boat.“

Another wrote: “Definitely NTA – When my son was in kindergarten, his teacher said that Christopher Columbus discovered America. My son corrected her, saying that Christopher was a murderer and thief, who thought he’d found India. So glad the teacher didn’t pull what OPs son teacher tried. It would not have gone well for her or the principal.”

A third wrote: “Seriously. My mom was a teacher and I don’t get this. It would have been an opportunity to talk about something else. Like what a predator is. What owl are. Vegetarians vs carnivors. I don’t get how instead of encouraging children to learn, you punish them for correcting a wrong. Also, I remember a teacher I once had actually awarding children who found any mistakes she did.”

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