Ironic Ignorance

Ignorant:
–adjective
1. lacking in knowledge or training; unlearned: an ignorant man.
2. lacking knowledge or information as to a particular subject or fact: ignorant of quantum physics.
3. uninformed; unaware.
4. due to or showing lack of knowledge or training: an ignorant statement.
(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ignorant)

Today a former student of a teacher friend of mine approached him after school as the students were dismissing. I had no idea who she was and had no recognition of her from the past.

As she talked about her former teacher from first grade, they joked about what kind of teachers we were and I was labeled "mean." Honestly, it was a refreshing statement since I worry that I am too often the "nice" teacher. I didn't enter this profession to be their friends. So hearing that I was considered mean meant I haven't strayed too far to the easy going side of my profession.

In addition, "mean" is usually code for "the teacher didn't let me do what I wanted to do." When that means not letting them coast by without working, then hell yeah, I am a mean SOB.

But until these last moments of writing all of this, that aspect of the conversation was lost in the one word she used in describing me during the laughter. This one word stuck with me throughout the rest of the afternoon because it reminded me of how often I hear it used erroneously.

The word? Ignorant.

It has become a pet peeve of mine which I probably mentioned once or twice in this blog already.

The word, "ignorant" gets tossed about so incorrectly and so often that I sometimes I wonder if I am the one mistaken. I looked it up on dictionary.com just to confirm my understanding of its meaning.

I am right. They are wrong.

This child and so many other people use ignorant to mean rude. But even the context she used it in today made such little sense I am not sure she even meant rude. Maybe she thinks it means rude, but rude didn't fit the context of her use of ignorance in this particular case. So she lost me.

Even though she was never in my class. She said knew me from the lunchroom despite the fact I have never had lunch duty. Maybe it is mistaken identity, but that is irrelevant. The point here is that in her mind, I was "ignorant" for being mean to her in the lunchroom.

Maybe she meant I was rude.

But how is that demonstrating some lack of knowledge on my part? This is what ignorant means after all, right? A lack of knowledge.

In the end, it seems rather ironic that people who use the word ignorant in this fashion to describe someone else, are actually the ignorant ones.

As they speak of someone being ignorant, they are displaying that very description themselves.

And this particular girl not only demonstrated the correct meaning of the word without knowing it, she also displayed her incorrect meaning of the word in her rude treatment of someone she doesn't even know.

Seems awfully ignant to me.