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About 27 years ago my son was in kindergarten. My wife received a phone call from school and they said that our presence was requested for a meeting with the principal and his teacher to clear up some behavior issues. I had to take the day off of work to attend.

So, we go to the principal's office at 11AM to see what is going on. My son's teacher says that our son is being very disruptive in class. I asked "in what way?" She says that she calls him Joshua and that he continually states that is not his name. I asked what he says his name actually is. She says he says it is Josh. I tell her that his name is really Josh. She tells me that is ridiculous, Josh is a nickname for Joshua. I tell her that we have named our son Josh, not Joshua. She insists that his name is Joshua, not Josh. The Principal steps in and asks me if we can prove that his name is Josh and not Joshua. I tell him "you bet, would like to see his birth certificate?" He says that he would. I ask him to pull out the records that the school owns and take a look. He calls for them. The records, a copy of his birth certificate, his immunization records and our application for admission to the school all show his name to be Josh not Joshua. I ask the principal if he has any further questions. He smiles and says "not at all." I ask the teacher if she has any questions. She says "who in their right mind would give their child a nickname instead of a real name." The Principal steps in again and tells us that all is well and he will have discussion with the teacher. From that time on Josh was very comfortable with his name and every teacher he had willingly used it properly.

Reminds me of a situation in college where an PA (Professor's Assistant) questioned my expertise in a certain area of recreation, (youth camping related), when we wrote our background bios. Unfortunatly, for the PA, when he bought it up with the professor, he did not know at that time that he was on the area board of directors of the youth orginization, that my family worked for. According to the prof, (he said the guy was embarassed and shocked), "Mr. *, she has been doing this since she was in diapers, walking and talking!"

A few months later on at a gathering, my dad met the PA, (after I pointed him out in the crowd and was thinking "payback") and showed him a picture of me when I was in preschool, operating a water filled fire extinguisher, (if you don't know what I'm talking about, the mechanism is kinda like a "Super Soaker"), and a funny photo of me at 6, having "trouble" with a water hose. Well, my dad thought it was funny, I didn't, after have hurting my knee. The PA and my dad were having a good old laugh about it, while I gave them the "you guys are so in the doghouse" look! It took a few days for my dad to get back in my good graces, as for the PA, I don't know what happened to him!

Teachers today do more teaching kids what to think as opposed to how to think. Also, social engineering is the first course of the day always.

vegassatellite said:

Teachers today do more teaching kids what to think as opposed to how to think. Also, social engineering is the first course of the day always.

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The only thing the kids are taught here is how to pass the state-mandated exams at the end of the year. No critical thinking required, just regurgitation of facts on multiple choice tests.

Unfortunately, of the six levels of the cognitive domain of Blooms Taxonomy (knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation), most public educators don't move past the first level, knowledge, which is just recall of facts.

snathanb said:

The only thing the kids are taught here is how to pass the state-mandated exams at the end of the year. No critical thinking required, just regurgitation of facts on multiple choice tests.

Unfortunately, of the six levels of the cognitive domain of Blooms Taxonomy (knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation), most public educators don't move past the first level, knowledge, which is just recall of facts.

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I try to work on my kids' abstract thinking abilities. Memorization is just pretty low on the knowledge spectrum.

Bobby said:

So, we go to the principal's office at 11AM to see what is going on. My son's teacher says that our son is being very disruptive in class. I asked "in what way?" She says that she calls him Joshua and that he continually states that is not his name. I asked what he says his name actually is. She says he says it is Josh. I tell her that his name is really Josh. She tells me that is ridiculous, Josh is a nickname for Joshua. I tell her that we have named our son Josh, not Joshua. She insists that his name is Joshua, not Josh. The Principal steps in and asks me if we can prove that his name is Josh and not Joshua. I tell him "you bet, would like to see his birth certificate?" He says that he would. I ask him to pull out the records that the school owns and take a look. He calls for them. The records, a copy of his birth certificate, his immunization records and our application for admission to the school all show his name to be Josh not Joshua. I ask the principal if he has any further questions. He smiles and says "not at all." I ask the teacher if she has any questions. She says "who in their right mind would give their child a nickname instead of a real name." The Principal steps in again and tells us that all is well and he will have discussion with the teacher.

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I ran into that issue a few times in my life. My first name is actually Bobby, not Robert (was named after my father who was Bobby Joe, I have a different middle name though).
I would get teachers from time to time who didn't use nicknames, and would call me Robert. I would correct them, saying it's actually Bobby. Fortunately none challenged me on it, as it was easy to verify.

Once in the Marine Corps though, I did have a SNCO challenge me on it when he saw my dogtags. Told me that I wasn't allowed to have nicknames on them. He called in the Top on the issue to have me reprimanded. He got really redfaced when I whipped out my ID & birth certificate showing Bobby.

For that teacher, I would have expected an apology, and not left until getting one.
I have a feeling though that the principle chewed her ass off after seeing the comment "he will have discussion with the teacher", and rightly so.