A Misconception of Mine

While discussing misconceptions in class, I got to thinking about all of the things I had been told when I was younger, whether by a teacher or someone I knew. I started questioning a lot of things I had previously thought of as "facts" to be possible misconceptions. The thought of possibly being told misconceptions in school really made me realize how important it is as a teacher to study your subject thoroughly prior to presenting it to your students.

The other night part of our homework was to take a quiz on misconceptions; however I did fairly well on it, but one particular question stuck out to me the most. The question said," Einstein, as in Albert, was a poor student." I quickly marked, "true" because I had always heard in school that Einstein did poorly in school, therefore make his inventions/ discoveries even more extraordinary. I was completely shocked when I discovered that this statement I thought of as a "fact" was actually a misconception I had had for at least 15 years!! Come to find out this idea is actually an "Urban Legend" and is a misunderstanding of the Swiss education grading system. As American's we typically use a grading scale of 1-4, in 4 being good and 1 being bad. However, in the Swiss 1-4 grading scale of 1-4, 4 is bad and 1 is good. This misconception really made me think about a lot. It made me see the importance of taking the time to investigate something before you just skim it over and say it's a fact.

When I become a teacher I plan to teach my students to constantly question. I also want to be the kind of teacher that if I don't know something I look it up-instead of being the teacher to just say something on the fly and move on thinking the children will not remember what I just said. I do not want to be the reason for any of the science misconceptions that my students might have.