Dialect In English Class

How should a teacher handle this? I have a hard time seeing most English teachers are unaware of dialect differences. I'm curious what others think, because one particular event annoyed me when I was little.

Growing up, I used CryEngine Sandbox 1 (game engine for Far Cry 1), which is made by Crytek, a German company. In the Game Engine, "harbor" is spelled "harbour." (btw, the browser spell check says it is wrong!).

So, I've very often used harbour over harbor, even though I spell "colour" as "color," etc. Once upon a time, I actually used this in some essay or story (I can't remember when). I lost points for "harbour." Is that fair? Unimportant? Or is the inconsistency in my writing a hideous blunder in the face of convention? I wasn't doing it to be a smart *, but because I thought that was how it was spelled (which it is... but not here).

What are your thoughts on this? Granted it's such a little thing, but I'm curious.

And of course, spelling conventions are just a conspiracy created by the aristocracy to control the proletariat, anyways.

Seeing as English teachers need English degrees, they're probably very aware of the different spellings.

It might be fair to mark it off if you were inconsistent (e.g. used "harbor" and "harbour"), but I don't think it's worth marking off for one British-spelled word. Here's an exercise on the differences between British and American spellings.

I don't think it really matters all that much, unless it's a spelling test.

What I do is, when starting a class, I make the teacher aware that I use British spellings rather than American ones (for reasons of personal preference). Ask them if they have a problem with it or if they'd prefer that I use American spellings for their class, which would require spellchecking myself but is definitely doable, and most of the time they say "whatever".

Of course, I have always been privileged to have educated and understanding English teachers who are used to dealing with presumptuous brats like me.

I do think that a teacher should, if not already made aware of the spelling differences, realise that their student is using the alternative to "harbor" or "color" and is doing so consistently. There is no international law that states "x dialect belongs to speakers of x country and everyone else can say 'armour'", so I honestly don't get it when teachers pitch a fit over something so minuscule and simple.

In spite of my American status, I tend to spell everything the British way. I just feel like I should because it is the true English. That, and I'm a bit of an Anglophile.

The problem would definitely have been the lack of consistency. If you're going to use a particular spelling it has to be consistent. Why is it important? Because it shows you know what you're doing, and that you know the difference. The same reason why we can't mix and match referencing styles or citations.