Correcting the Teacher

I was one of those students that had no qualms about correcting my teacher in school. Occasionally it was minor errors on the chalkboard; other times the teacher would have to rethink through what they had just spent some time on. Most of the time I was right, sometimes in haste I would be the mistaken one and had to recognize that they after all did know their stuff.

These habits are hard to break. A couple of years ago, we had some training at work on the Theory of Constraints and Critical Chain which was really just another way of making a schedule using some nifty new tool that someone thought we should spend money on. There were a couple of things I learned in that class unrelated to the theory that my management wish I hadn't learned, but the main problem was the math. It didn't add up. As the instructors went through the explanations, I took pencil to paper, got past their hand waving, and came to the conclusion that the math didn't support their claims. Now anyone who has sat in any corporate training knows, the people that actually know the stuff don't do the training, specialized trainers teach the class. Being the exacting engineer that I am, I made a comment explaining why the math didn't work. The response from the instructor was classic, "I don't have a degree in mathematics, but the man who came up with this was an astrophysicist and is very brilliant. He must know what he's talking about." Appealing to a higher authority. One of the best logical fallacies out there. Fortunately another participant piped up. "Actually, I have a Ph.D. in statistics and he [referring to me] is right." After the session, they did admit that once you run things through their method, you just fudge the numbers to come up with the end date you want. To quote Solomon. "There is nothing new under the sun."

Another case where the math did no add up. My 2nd grade daughter said to me the other day,
"Do you know what A.D. means?"
"Yes, I do, but tell me what it is."
"After Death"
"Then what is B.C.?"
"Before Christ"
"And what do you then call the 33 years in between? Did your teacher actually tell you that is what A.D. means?"
...
Later, I had her ask my wife the same question. Without batting an eye "Anno Domini".

As a father I want to teach my daughters not only to critically listen to what they are taught, but to also respect those in authority. Now here's the question: Once you tell your daughter the correct understanding, should you let her inform her teacher that she's wrong? Accuracy vs Respect. Maybe the teacher was just trying to simplify things for 2nd graders, but there's no reason for teaching something that is so just plain wrong. She already seems to think she knows it all (and she's not even a teenager yet). This is something my wife and I are trying to work on with her.

Something like the definition of A.D. is pretty minor, easily corrected, and not a big deal, but.... I'm sure there will be other things that she will be taught that are a bigger issue. Some of these will probably be in conflict with our mores. She needs to respect her teachers, but she also need to think critically and be willing to question things that aren't right. In addition, she needs to know that here parents care and want her to learn what is right. How do we keep the communication paths open that she will come talk to us about these things and trust us to teach her the truth? Where's the balance?