When the teacher is wrong

[Madame Manga]

My ten-year-old told me that today his fourth-grade teacher explained to the class the differences in usage of 'affect' and 'effect'. Unfortunately, she seems to have got it wrong. I wasn't there, obviously, but she apparently said that 'affect' pertains to people and 'effect' to things. Uhh...

She's a great teacher measured on the enthusiasm scale, is very experienced, and understands what's going on with my bright, hard-to-manage child. He's been doing very well in her class overall--she keeps an eye on him and encourages him, and doesn't let him get away with anything. Frankly, she's been wonderful, and he loves her.

So what do I do now? I gently set him straight (it took a few minutes to convince him that she could have been mistaken) then did a search and found a couple of things to print out for him by way of further explanation. It would be a good thing, obviously, if her class were somehow made privy to this information, but I am a little stumped for a tactful way to do that.

Am I just being a grammar wonk? Will it really kill anyone to merrily confuse 'affect' and 'effect' for a lifetime? Not like that's rare, even in printed material. *sigh* I'm starting to realize why.

MM

 

[Colleen Thomas]

You are right to teach him the correct way. One of the most important lessons you can learn is that even authority figures can make mistakes. It's a lesson that goes far beyond grammar.

*HUGS*

-Colly

 

[gauchecritic]

there's also the possibility that your son got it the wrong way round, not the teacher.

Gauche

(I dropped out of teacher training college because I didn't want to work with people who were so thick)

 

[Pure]

It seems to me that if she's a good teacher, then if she is shown the issue in private, tactfully she will be glad to learn. Teachers at the lower levels are spread very thin, and cannot be experts in everything; the best ones know this, and are glad to hear from parents who are scientists, for example. It's not, however, up to you, imo, to 'see to it' that a new explanation is given to the whole class.

These words are constantly misused, including among 90% of literotica writers; there's some truth in her idea that it's a 'thing' (non person) which is always effected. It's also true that affects are mainly ascribed to people and by people to their dogs, but not true that only people are affected by various things.

I agree that one should NOT assume her _concepts_ are wrong, since your son may be mistaken, or there could have been a gap or slip in her explanation, or in what was written down. Even if you see a sentence (written by your son) that appears wrong, and he says it's an accurate copy from the board, it may be miscopied, since presumably your son did not understand the difference. This is an old polite tactic, giving a person room: "Perhaps I misheard you or have been given a wrong idea of your view. I want to clarify things with you directly as to what you think."

 

[CharleyH]

there's also the possibility that your son got it the wrong way round, not the teacher.

Gauche

(I dropped out of teacher training college because I didn't want to work with people who were so thick)

LOL - the same thought crossed my mind. A friend of mine with a bright 9 year old made the mistake of correcting the teacher - she looked stupid - the child didn't recount the story correctly. After all a ten yer old is a ten year old. It's a longer story - but - I'll save y'all

 

[angela146]

Make sure you check all of the definitions of "affect" and “effect” before discussing this with the teacher. Your son's teacher might have been trying to explain the second definition of "affect", along with a subtlety in the use of “effect”.

Affect (1) verb: to have influence on something

Examples (1): "I affect people when I touch them."

Affect (2) Verb: to pretend. Noun: feeling or emotion as expressed by the face or body language.

Examples(2): (verb) "I affect a French accent." (noun) "Her happiness gave her face a pleasant affect".

-----

Affect (2) is usually only applicable to people (unless one is speaking anthropomorphically). Chairs cannot affect in this sense. They cannot pretend to be tables. They also usually do not have an affect, unless they have smiley faces painted on them.

There is also a sense in which "effect" (the noun) does not apply to people. My actions or my presence can have an effect but I cannot.

BTW: I'm not trying to give a complete definition here. I'm just trying to point out that "affect" and "effect" are extremely complicated words when all of their meanings are considered.

Explaining all of this to a ten year old is a daunting task. Hell, explaining it to y’all is a daunting task.

If I were to try to effect a solution to the problem, I would fail. In fact my solution might be affective rather than effectual. I would hope that my solution would not become effective. If you saw me you would realize that my affect is just as confused as my effect.

BTW: Don't confuse "effective" with "effectual". A law or directive becomes effective on a particular date, even if it has no useful effect. Usefulness makes something effectual. The effect may last longer than the effectiveness.

 

[SlickTony]

Angela, you've explained this so effectively I can hardly think of anything to add to it.

Judging from what Mme. Manga said about the teacher, I'd want to make sure her son didn't hear things wrong. However, I've known quite a few teachers who would have been perfectly capable of messing up. One of my daughter's teachers sent a note home with her in which she spelled "lost" as "lossed."

 

[Madame Manga]

Thank you for your thoughts, everyone--this has been eating me all afternoon!

The first possibility I considered was that my son had heard wrong--it wouldn't be the first time, I admit. I asked him if he was sure that was what she had said. He quoted a sentence to me that he said she had written on the board as correct:

"The crops were effected by the weather."

Apparently she ran across something in the printed classroom material that she believed was wrong, and went into a demonstration. My son's memory for facts is frightening; he can tell you all about andesitic vs. basaltic magma and other scientific esoterica, and he is a whiz at spelling tests. I don't think he would have mixed up the two words only half an hour after getting out of class. That's Mama talking, natch. However, his science fair experiment involves testing the viscosity of various fluids at different temperatures. His teacher had not run across the word 'viscosity' until he turned in his proposal.

As I say, I looked up some material just to be sure I wasn't leaving anything out, and I didn't run across anything unexpected. Perhaps he can take the printouts to class with him and offer them as supplementary material, but first I'm going to discuss this with him again.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_spelprob.html
http://www.bartleby.com/64/C003/015.html
http://www.cjr.org/tools/lc/affecteffect.asp

I wish I could tell him "Do lots of reading and you will absorb the rules of correct grammar," but that's just not true any more. Can you believe that my English teacher, circa 1978, used to say we should read major newspapers to learn proper style? I notice an affect-effect error in the Wall Street Journal every other week, at least.

MM

 

[kellycummings]

Kinda sorta on the subject, you know what bugs me?

When they teach so called 'history' to grade schoolers. They say things like Benjamin Franklin invented electricity and the civil war was about slavery and blah blah blah. I know they are kids and would get seriously bored and lost with the real details but shouldn't they at least try to teach the truth?

Bugs me. I know, not a big deal really but I aint gonna lie to my kids and say 'yep, that's how it happened.'

 

[sailorm72003]

It can get very frustrating.

I find that after working with my son for an hour on spelling, (which he struggles with daily), and then turn to the assignment sheet written and photocopied by the TEACHER to see words that are on the spelling list for the day


Spelled incorrectly.


How in the *&#&$#^@($_ am I supposed to show a child that it's important to spell correctly, when his teacher can't?

So for MM and all the rest of us parents, I think the only thing to do is keep working with our kids, and quietly make the teachers aware of errors.

Feeling for you,

Sailor

 

[champagne1982]

[...]*&#&$#^@($_
[...]Feeling for you,

Sailor

Hey, hey now! No need to swear like a...

Oh.

You are a sailor. My bad

 

[minsue]

I am so unbelievably, and pathetically , happy to see the affect vs effect issue bothers someone other than myself. I went absolutely insane when I started reading the newspaper regularly a few years ago. All of the writers use affect in place of effect and it drove me nuts. I ranted about this to friends and they all looked at me like I was crazy and said the same moronic thing that teacher said. Since then it has become a pet peeve of mine and I notice it in all sorts of publications. When did this happen to the English language?!?

Whew! Sorry about that. Didn't realize how irritated I still am about that.

- Mindy, needing a life...

 

[oggbashan]

Teacher's Creed:

"If you believe only half of everything your child says about me and check with me if it is important, I won't believe more than half of everything your child says about you and I will check with you if it is important."

When parents turn up at school for parents' evenings they look and sound like normal people. If teachers believe what children said about parents they would expect a cross between Frankenstein's monster and Genghis Khan. Parents often find to their surprise that teachers are human.

Og (married to a retired teacher)

 

[SensualCealy]

Okay, coming from one of the biggest offenders when it comes to grammar and sentence structure, where, how and with what do I learn about grammar at my old age.

I had a very poor teacher when it came to grammar, in fact I think they stuck me in a special spelling class when I was to be learning grammar- screwed up both!

But seriously, I know I suck at it, and want to learn so people on here dont beat me down when they read my stories. Dampy has come to my rescue and shown me a few things, but I want to be able to do it myself.

Thanks for the help,
Cealy

 

[SlickTony]

How in the *&#&$#^@($_ am I supposed to show a child that it's important to spell correctly, when his teacher can't?

Who the ((*^^^_%% knows anymore? Nobody seems to give a shit. This is something I've ranted about for many years. I've ranted about it here. I've ranted about it in every forum I've ever been in. With all due respect to Mrs. Ogg, there is nothing wrong with holding teachers to a higher standard than you'd impose on everyone else. Otherwise you end up with the effect/affect error in the Wall Street Journal. And when people in the publishing business not only don't know, but don't give a damn, it's scary. Scarier yet when people whose business it ought to be to give a damn, don't. I'm glad when other people come in here and raise these concerns. It makes me feel less like a voice crying in the wilderness.

 

[angela146]

Before anyone starts railing against teachers, I would invite him/her to write a succinct explanation of *all* of the forms of both words and post it here.

Try to make the explanation understandable to an average fifth grader (ten year old).

Remember that effect and affect can both be nouns and verbs. It is incorrect to state that one is a noun and the other is a verb.

Hats off to an effectual answer.

 

[oggbashan]

Oxford does it

affect , to have an influence on.e.g Hugh was affected by Jill's tears.

* Do not confuse with effect to accomplish. e.g. Hugh hugged Jill hoping to effect a closer relationship.

* There is a noun effect 'result, property' e.g. to good effect, personal effects, sound effects, but there is no noun affect except in the specialised language of Psychology.

From The Oxford Guide to English Usage but I have changed the examples.

Og

 

[Ann Vremont]

what I've done in same situation

This has happened not only with English but with History and a couple of the other "soft" classes (ie neither Math, nor Science, about which I don't dare to second guess the teacher). I make sure my son knows (1) the correct facts, usage, etc. (2) retains for the interim (if he's to be tested on it) the teacher's version. I don't worry about other people's children in this type of situation. (That would be a bit wonkish.

If you try to point out to the teacher his/her mistake, you are asking for a difficult year--particulary if you have a bright, hi-energy child that can just as easily be mislabeled as a difficult child (as mine can be .

 

[Pure]

Ann: "(1) the correct facts"

Always the best kind.

 

[Pure]

The noun aspect.

An effect is a result or consequence. The bad effects of alcohol.
An affect is, roughly, an emotion. A term of psychologists. The man showed flattening of affect. (consistently low level emotional responses; no emotional changes when usual.)

For the ten year old. In normal conversation**, if you're talking about a 'thing'--using a noun in a sentence--anything that can be pointed to, that is including a quality, an event, you're talking about an *effect.

**Leaving aside shrinks, psychologists, college professors in behavioral sciences.
------

The common problem is with the verb forms:
affect: to influence; (occasionally) to make a display of or pretend
effect: to bring about; to make happen, to cause.

Compare: He hoped taking vitamans would affect his endurance as a runner (for the better).

He took vitamins to effect a change in his (level of) endurance.

Note: affect, the verb, is far more common. Were one to have to guess, having forgotten all else --avoid the most common error-- choose 'affect' for the verb.

 

[SlickTony]

but there is no noun affect except in the specialised language of Psychology.

Which, if you are close to someone on the autism spectrum, you're going to run into frequently.

If you try to point out to the teacher his/her mistake, you are asking for a difficult year--particulary if you have a bright, hi-energy child that can just as easily be mislabeled as a difficult child (as mine can be .

Sister, you said a mouthful! Furthermore, the enmity of a teacher can go throughout a school and affect the siblings of the student in question. And isn't it funny that people who supposedly like to impart learning don't have that much interest in being on the receiving end?