Maths teacher sacked for refusing to use opposite sex pronouns.

@Newbutoldfather nobody is drawing the line anywhere it seems. I think it’s part of a bigger issue in schools which is why I’m glad I don’t teach in secondary schools anymore. It’s totally unenviable

@Upinthenightagain ,

But where do you draw the line here?

Child insists they need to drink in the lab as they have a medical condition. Head has agreed with parents that this is ok.

You, as a perceptive teacher, know this child has had hypochondria for years and judge it to be attention seeking, and shouldn’t be validated in that it just encourages the hypochondria.

Does the teacher’s personal judgment trump the school’s, and is a classroom the best place to have the conversation?

@Newbutoldfather but unlike with Prevent there isn’t good enough guidance for schools. They haven’t really got anywhere to refer children to to help with these things so they’re just going along calling them ‘she’ when they’re ‘he’ and ‘Joanna’ when they’re ’Joseph’ and I’m not sure that’s the right thing to be doing as a professional and someone in a position of influence.

I support his actions wholeheartedly. I hope his union is backing him.

On the other hand, New College Swindon is a complete dump, so if he loses the case, he'll be better off out of there anyway. With policies like that, I'm amazed they have any teachers (whose job is to teach facts) left.

As a skilled maths teacher, he'll have no problem finding a much better job somewhere with an intelligent and competent senior leadership team.

@Upinthenightagain ,

‘you could argue by going along with the name changes we’re encouraging the young person’s beliefs and teachers shouldn’t be encouraging anything that’s harmful.’

Yes, interesting point. But, again, I would use the chosen name in class but refer the pupil under the Prevent scheme. I wouldn’t unilaterally have it out with them in front of the whole class, which would probably have the opposite effect and radicalise them more.

Schools have all sorts of structures which can be used to deal with this sort of thing. It just isn’t a classroom teacher’s job to try and deal with complex psychological issues, especially not by humiliating a pupil in front of the class.

Many years ago I had a pupil like that but, after the memo from the Head, of course I wasn’t going to use their previous name, regardless of how silly using the new one made me feel.

@taxguru ,

umm, how about if your child hated their name and changed it for whatever reason but a teacher, again for whatever reason, decided not to use it, and just pointed at your child instead?

I am as gender critical as most in some ways, but being rude and upsetting to a child in class would not ever occur to me.

These things need to be dealt with in a properly way among the relevant adults and out of the classroom.

I think part of the problem is the reasons these children are changing their names are because they want to identify as a different gender so you could argue by going along with the name changes we’re encouraging the young person’s beliefs and teachers shouldn’t be encouraging anything that’s harmful. If the young person had joined an extremest group and adopted a name associated with that group we wouldn’t be happy with teachers going along with that would we? I worry that somewhere along the line, we’re going to have a lot of young adults with regrets wondering why the adults and professionals around them encouraged and enabled them to make these life choices

This! It's absolutely extraordinary that we've got such a shortage of teachers yet one is being sacked for basically a "nothing" reason. The lunatics really are in charge of the asylum.

I wouldn’t die on this hill!

It wasn’t pronouns, he was refusing to call her by her ‘new’ name in class, arguing it is compelled speech, which I just think is pretty rude. There is also something about a Maths competition which I can see both sides of. She asked if she could enter and he said ‘of course, you are a girl’ and entered her under her previous name. There are so many more diplomatic ways around this, such as saying your sex is female and it is open to all members of the female sex, however you know think of yourself, and use her new name.

If you are gender critical, surely that goes for names too? If Harriet wants to call herself Harrison, why would I care? He decided to gesture at her silently instead, which would be pretty offensive.

In the article I read, pronouns weren’t even mentioned.

A shortage of Maths teachers yet they sack one for no good reason. Madness. I hope he wins.

Brave!

@MrsOvertonsWindow he does have a crowdfunder now and it looks like he has a barrister helping him - Dr. Anna Loutfi, of the Bad Law Project - but I'm not sure if that means she'd be representing him in the tribunal.

That’s a pity if he didn’t realise how much support he’d get if he’d crowdfunded. I think it’s (another) important case

Me too. He's representing himself which is brave.