What's the Big Deal with Students Addressing Teachers By First Name?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No child is the social equal of an adult. That is what use of the requisite title reinforces.

Thanks for your candor! Yes, the function of requiring the (asymmetrical) use of titles is to reinforce subordination.

In a school environment, the question then becomes whether kids learn best in environments where there are treated as subordinates/status inferiors. And how you answer that question probably reflects how you conceptualize education.

[Anonymous]

This is clearly a case of different strokes for different folks. I respect parents who feel uncomfortable with their kids calling teachers by their first names. I strongly disagree with their opinions but they are absolutely entitled to it. It also makes a life a little easier. It helps the natural selection when applying to schools. I'm glad America has a broad range of educational curriculums.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No child is the social equal of an adult. That is what use of the requisite title reinforces.

This statement bothers me. I think this mentality is what disempowers children from coming forward as victims of abuse and at the same time empowers the abuser to think the kid will not tell. IMO this is why these situations happen more within the Roman Catholic and Christian Fundamentalist faiths than others, the view that some humans are superior to others. All humans deserve respect.

After attending a very traditional K-8, my DC now attends a progressive high school. I was feeling pretty icky about the addressing teachers by first name policy, but everything else regarding the school's fit to my child was perfect. So I decided to bite the bullet on the first name issue, much the same way I decided to bite the bullet on the "girls can not wear pants" issue at the previous school.

I now feel very differently about the first name policy. I have found at the high school level it has helped create an environment where DC is taking more responsibility for her education. She has learned not to shy away from conflict or accept a situation and/or grade/assignment that does not seem quite right and to respectfully negotiate and stand her ground and to be her own advocate. It is ALWAYS respectful and she also accepts that the educator does have the last word. I credit this to the feeling of openness and mutual respect the first name policy has created at my child's school.

That said, she still addresses adults as Mr. Ms. Mrs until invited to address them by last name. Funny enough, though this is what we have modeled for her since day one, *I* have always preferred children address me by first name. The Ms or Mrs thing always seemed cold to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is clearly a case of different strokes for different folks. I respect parents who feel uncomfortable with their kids calling teachers by their first names. I strongly disagree with their opinions but they are absolutely entitled to it. It also makes a life a little easier. It helps the natural selection when applying to schools. I'm glad America has a broad range of educational curriculums.

The first name thing isn't a big issue for me (either way). That said, it's one thing to be entitled to your own opinion and comfort level and quite another to suggest that people with different sensibilities are lax, permissive, have no boundaries, are raising mannerless/disrespectful children with an overweaning sense of entitlement, etc.

[Anonymous]

pp. I agree but debating them isn't productive. They are angry people who project their own inability to control their children on others.

[Anonymous]

For me, it comes down to wanting respect (a) not simply because I'm older and (b) expressed in ways that are substantive rather than merely conventional. In other words, I don't think that the use of titles is either a necessary or a sufficient indicator of respect.

And I think that, regardless of age or position, everybody is entitled to a certain level of respect. Beyond that basic level (of consideration, civility, social recognition), respect should be earned based on things like character, ability/judgment, and how you treat people rather than on job titles or age.

[Anonymous]

These first name schools are also likely to have openly gay teachers. I suspect that some, but not all of the people, who object to kids calling teachers by first names will also stress out over gay men and women teaching their kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These first name schools are also likely to have openly gay teachers. I suspect that some, but not all of the people, who object to kids calling teachers by first names will also stress out over gay men and women teaching their kids.

I hadn't checked in on the thread since yesterday morning. I am pleased to see the pace of the degeneration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hadn't checked in on the thread since yesterday morning. I am pleased to see the pace of the degeneration.

I adore you. Please keep posting.

[Anonymous]

Yes, because pure content-free snark is the key to successful degeneration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, because pure content-free snark is the key to successful degeneration.

Don't sweat it -- this thread is going nowhere anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is clearly a case of different strokes for different folks. I respect parents who feel uncomfortable with their kids calling teachers by their first names. I strongly disagree with their opinions but they are absolutely entitled to it. It also makes a life a little easier. It helps the natural selection when applying to schools. I'm glad America has a broad range of educational curriculums.

Oh, please. There's "natural selection"? Darwinism now? I guess you think you are more evolved.

[Anonymous]

isn't it obvious. That's why its called ``progressive'' education

[Anonymous]

I am glad that any "progressives" who are arrogant enough to consider themselves evolutionarily superior to me on the basis of their allowing their children to address adults by first names are "naturally selected" out from my DC's school where teachers are addressed by title and surname and where one teacher, incorrectly addressed, said, "You have crossed the line," and had the boy stay after class and call his parents.

[Anonymous]

A boy at one of the boys' schools called a teacher by his first name after his classmates, as a prank, told him the teacher likes to be called by his first name. The teacher stopped in the hallway, glared, and said, "Don't you ever call me that again." The boys have dined on that story all this year.