How do you address elementary school teachers?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First name, I’m an adult talking to another adult. My kids say “Mr/Mrs” unless the teacher requests otherwise.

No. We aren’t friends. I’m not your employee. When parents call me by my first name I make sure to let them know I go by Ms. Lastname. I am a professional speaking to you as a professional, not your teenage babysitter. And I don’t call parents by their first names either.

When you’ve finished medical school or law school, I’ll call you by your title. Otherwise I’ll call you by your name and you can call me by mine. I don’t call my boss Mr Smith, he’s just John. And he’s just as professional as you are.

You have a relationship with him. You can insist upon it if you want but a) you look like a jackass with no manners or social skills and b) I will remind you each time I’m not Jane to you, I’m Ms LastName.

Nobody is insisting upon anything. If someone said they strongly prefer to be called Mrs Smith, that’s one thing (I’ll call you whatever you want), but you’re implying that by default we should be calling a teacher “Mrs” and that’s a bit ridiculous. Also, I have a relationship with my kids teachers. Most parents in the school do, we aren’t just strangers popping by for a yearly conference.

You just said you won’t use people’s title unless they’ve graduated from medical school. That’s not up to you. Call people what they indicate to you they want you to call them. No way you’d email the principal or superintendent or school board and be like “Hey Ted.” So show the same respect to teachers.

I said I wouldn’t do it as a default. If I called them by their first name and they responded that they would prefer Mr/Mrs, that’s fine, but no, I’m not emailing the principal as Mrs Smith, she’s Susan by default unless corrected. Same with basically everyone but a doctor, who would be Dr Smith as a default. The whole Mr/Mrs thing to me is pretty strange and old timey. I’m a younger millennial, I grew up with a lot of my teachers in HS referring to themselves by their first name.

[Anonymous]

There seems to be a strong inverse correlation how much someone demands the use of a title and how much they are truly worthy of what that title is supposed to convey.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If I am speaking to my child I say "Mrs. ___". If I am speaking directly to the teacher (and out of earshot of my child) I will say "Barbara"

+1

I think this is normal.

Me too!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There seems to be a strong inverse correlation how much someone demands the use of a title and how much they are truly worthy of what that title is supposed to convey.

Mr / Mrs is not some outlandish title. It’s literally just basic manners.