I don’t want my students to call me Michael because I believe it is important to remind them that I am their teacher and not their friend. This is important, because if you want your advise to be respected, I think it helps to have a more formal title.
Still, I think it is over the top to suspend a child for 5 days for referring to you by your name outside of school. Sure it was rude, but it amazes me how badly punishments fit the crime nowadays:
A boy has been suspended from classes for five days after he called a teacher by his Christian name outside of school hours.
Sean Roberts, 14, has been banned from Wellington Academy in the mornings and in the afternoons he must attend the school’s ‘department for naughty kids’.
The school in Tidworth, Wiltshire, is sponsored by Wellington College and its executive head is political historian Dr Anthony Seldon. Yesterday, Sean’s mother Julie Roberts, 42, demanded her son be allowed back in class ‘as the punishment is over the top’.
She claimed the Academy was ‘making an example’ of her son.
Hairdresser Mrs Roberts – who has already lost 106 pounds in wages staying at home to look after him – said she was only told about the punishment in an evening phone call from the teacher Head of Department Barry Seymour
‘This happened in the village where we live – it was outside of school. My son was walking home and my son shouted out to him Hi Barry. Barry followed him and challenged him at school the next day and my son said he did it.
‘Then I had a phone call telling me my son was not allowed in school for five days but I have had nothing in writing and no official meeting. The night he called the punishment was due to start the next day.
‘The teacher involved said to me your son shouted my name in a way that made me feel small and undermined. I said to him because I know this guy ‘come on Barry he is a 14 year old kid – you should not be intimidated by a 14 year old. Is that all he said and he said yes.
‘I would have thought if they were sanctioning something so serious then I would have been called in for a meeting and laid out on the table what was going to happen – a structured plan. But I have had nothing – just a phone call from the teacher involved. I have had nothing in writing.
Click on the link to read Let’s See if you Can Work Out Why This Teacher was Suspended
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Tags: Barry Seymour, Christian name outside of school hours., Dr Anthony Seldon, Education, Julie Roberts, News, Sean Roberts, suspended from class for calling teacher by first name, Teachers, Teaching, Tidworth, Wellington Academy, Wellington College
Topical Teaching 
March 12, 2014 at 4:28 am |
Oh boy is this overreacting! I have had students call me by my first name, usually as a joke. I correct them and tell them they may call me that when they have turned 18 and graduated high school (a policy my high school choir director had). It works and of all of the students I’ve taught only 2 have started calling me by my first name since they graduated high school, the rest still call me Mrs. D, or just use my last name.
March 12, 2014 at 9:34 am |
I’ve have the same experiences. It’s much better when teachers command respect rather than demand it.
June 22, 2014 at 12:39 pm |
[…] this Topical Teaching post, it’s suggested that teachers earn respect through their surname. In Australia, I’d say […]