Is this rude from a child? Age 6, furious reaction from teacher

I don’t shout in my classroom, but kids are often telling me to stop shouting at them as they’re not used to being told no. They take any form of being sanctioned as shouting because they don’t understand the difference between tone and volume.

Oh FFS.

A literal exploration?

No, he didn't shut up when his teacher told the class to not disrupt. That's badly behaved.

The best you can do is explain to your son that disrupting teachers is bad, if all 30 kids 'explored' (back chatted) everything the teacher says, it would be mayhem (well it's mayhem in state schools much of the time) and your son is contributing to a culture of disrespect.

Being a good pupil means do what the teacher tells you. Tell your son he's lucky to be able to go to school and learn and in the future to make sure he does as he's told in class.

At home, with you, he can do all the 'exploration' (back chatting) he wants if it suits you as a family. Not in a communal learning setting tho.

Hope this will be a lesson for your son. And no, do not go in and talk to the teacher, just teach your son how to behave in school.

But they aren't the same thing - you can be injured without being in pain, e.g. a small cut that bleeds a lot but doesn't really hurt, and obviously you can be in pain without being injured, if you are ill. If your DS is going to be pedantic, he needs to get his facts right!

teacher as DS is very sensitive especially around shouting

You can work on making him less so by being a firmer with him at home. Teachers in primary schools pretty much never shout. But they do use very firm or brisk, no nonsense or cross tones and its the children who rarely told off in a firm way at home who call this "shouting" and get worked up over it. He's not a baby, he'll soon learn that in a class of 30 he has to be quieter and more obedient than you might expect at home.

Things like this are so hard out of context. But I'd imagine the fact the teacher had got to the point of making them silent means they were probably at the end if their tether of kids talking over her, chatting back, being disruptive etc. Her point was that she didn't want any interruptions unless they were significantly important and your child immediately responds with something unhelpful and unimportant 🤷‍♀️ its frustrating.

OP could your DS have a bit of a habit of this? Could this have been the straw that broke the camels back?

I remember when I was at school it was often the same people that asked constant inane questions, wanted to immediately share opinions or even give a running commentary on what the teacher was saying. It was really annoying to the other people in class let alone the teacher.

Now I understand that he's 6 and still learning how to behave but if he's never taught that he's being irritating to everyone and that there is a time and place for questioning he might not learn it.

And yet I often read on Mumsnet that smaller classes sizes, as provided for in eg private school, are of little/no benefit to students.

Pedantic, or correct? He may genuinely have been confused as to why you’d need to alert the teacher if you’re injured but not in pain. Accuracy of communication is important to convey meaning.

Why is attention to detail a bad thing? He may be a future lawyer in the making.

shouting was probably not even shouting! As someone else said, he is cheeky he got called out and he felt embarrassed about it hence crying

You’ve got a smart arse kid on your hands watch your back!

I don’t think he was being a smart arse. I have children be that direct to me, albeit older. I can’t imagine the rant lasted 2 minutes. If I shouted for two minutes, other teachers in the vicinity would have stepped in.
I would tell your son to keep questions like that to another time. The timing was probably more to do with it. Constant interruptions are so annoying and the lessons can go off on tangents, no matter how old they are. If I got a £ for every time a kid knocks my door for a toilet key bescause they cannot wait for them to be opened(no comments please on locked toilets please- phones, vaping and damage…) I would have retired by now. Bane of my life. They all know I have a key…
PS I always give it out as I am not unkind but does my head in when I am mid slow and then my menopausal brain forgets what I am saying or doing!
Hope your son will be happier in school soon.

If he can't help but be cheeky and disruptive, what is a teacher to do?

There are definitely times in class when they shouldn’t be heard! You clearly have little idea of what it’s like to teach or you are one of those parents who thinks your DC can do what they want in school and teachers have no right to tell them off.

I agree the teacher shouldn’t have had a 2 minute rant about a cheeky comment by a sis year old. But honestly, is it likely that happened? Worst case scenario is the teacher lost their temper a bit ( poor practice but not a sackable offence I hope) and gave the child in question a stern 20-30 second speech on how interrupting with a cheeky correction is being rude. To a young child in trouble 20-30 seconds probably feels like two minutes, but isn’t actually two minutes.

Me to Dc1 and 3: How was school?
DC1 and 3: Fine. (Or a grunt as they got older).

DC2: Charlie did this and that and then there was a HUGE BIG ENORMOUS fly in the classroom it was the biggest fly I have every seen and it buzzed around for hours and hours and hours and it was so noisy. Then JACK SPILLED HIS WATER EVERYWHERE and it was BIG mess and THEN Susan’s apple fell on the floor and got all dirty and the teacher washed it for her under the tap but Susan still didn’t want to eat it and she cried for AGES AND AGES AND AND AND

🤷🏼‍♀️

but There's time to yell at him? Okayyy

She won't have yelled. She will have used a firm tone. And yep, there's time to discipline to prevent him doing it all bloody year

In this context, yes.

Teaching has to be structured and the teacher has 30 individuals to consider. Unless you are prepared to pay for one-to-one tuition for your child they need to learn to fit in and shut the f up when so instructed, for their sake and that of others.

It starts like this - cute 6 year old makes cheeky riposte, and ten years later you’ve got a highly disruptive student wrecking his classmates’ education.

My child basically never tells me about stuff in school, not because he doesn’t like it but because as soon as he’s home he’s no interest in reliving it! (I was the same when I was a student)l I’m always amazed by these 5-6 year olds who are able to and desire to give blow my blow accounts, with accurate timings, of teacher-class/student interactions!

Not all the time, not at all. Please read my posts.

In that moment, however, he needed to sit down, be quiet, and get on with his work.

Some kids do struggle as they move up the school with the transition to this type of learning. And the op should go in, as I said, and in conjunction with the teacher, work out what it is he’s finding difficult and get strategies in place to support him.

But ultimately he needs to zip it and do as he’s told when he’s told to.

This is a school environment. There’s 30 kids in a class (up to). It’s a different environment to a smaller group of 10, or 18 or 1 or 2 siblings at home.

I can't believe a teacher didn't respond when a little child began to cry.

The crying is an attention seeking reaction! Children who cry because they've been told off are a pain in the arse. You ignore it because you need them to learn not to bother.

If you pander to all the kids who's mummy's and daddy's are very soft at home and tolerate answering back and interrupting etc, then fuss over them when they cry, when are you going to fucking teach them grammar and maths and history and the masses of other things in year 2?

It’s got nothing to do with ego and everything to do with behaviour management. If a teacher instructs the class to be quiet and then engages in a debate because some kid has piped up they’ll be undermining themselves. Classes can’t be constant free-for-alls when you have 30 kids to teach.

Children need to know that they don't need to voice their thoughts/opinions all of the time. This is such a form of distraction in the classroom. If all of the class need to be 'heard' equally the teacher will never be able to get any work done.

Yes it was really rude. The teacher clearly needed to get on with something important and kept getting interrupted and he came back with a cheeky comment and deserved a ticking off for it.
I would actually be a bit cross with my child and be having words as nitpicking and being pedantic is an awful habit and needs to be nipped in the bud.

but There's time to yell at him? Okayyy

Yip.

Embarrassingly, I was that parent.

I only did it a couple of times though, and it was only ever dc2 (the smart mouth class clown clever clogs cheeky rascal).

These are great traits, and in appropriate circumstances they’ve taken my dc2 very far, but they’re not appropriate in the classroom.

ETA. Went to the school to talk to the teacher, not ringing SS.

It sounds like the teacher has been getting interrupted constantly and tried to put some firm rules in place so they could actually teach the children.
Your son was cheeky in saying what he did.

This is a perfect chance to speak to him about not trying to be the class clown and to respect what his teachers have asked.