Why are teachers still referred to as Mr/Mrs/Miss X?

[ChimaeraEgg]

Idle musing of the day but why do children still have to address teachers using their surnames? I assume that originally this was a respect thing and due to the fact that it was normal to address people at work or other adults as Mr/Mrs X? But I'm 32 and never in my adult life have I addressed another adult using their surname. School is the only place I have done it.

@W00t

To be fair Elmo all the maternity wards I've been on, the staff have all been rushed off their feet, pulled six ways at once. Probably far easier to just say Mum.

In every ward I've been on/visited, there's a sign directly above the patient's head, with their name on.

C'mon now...

Even if school is the only place I think it is the appropriate thing to do. It would be like addressing your parents by their name to use a teacher's first name. As well as showing respect.

Stuffed if I know why please/thank you isn't automatic and it is so much effort that someone thinks it is an addition to Mr/Mrs, and both together is too much effort.

Except it isn't that is it, it is that there is no inherent reason why calling an adult ( not a teacher, this is a separate conversation now) Mr or Mrs is inherently more polite or respectful than using their first name.

Still no one has explained why it is inherently bad manners to call someone by their first name.

It would be like addressing your parents by their name to use a teacher's first name

My niece addresses my sister using her first name. They've done that since she was tiny, that's what they chose to do. I assure you, she is a lovely well adjusted girl who is exceedingly polite and respectful to her mother.

That's all 2002 onwards so not the complete dark ages.

I think in the world of general office work a lot has changed since then actually. I remember in 2008 on my gap year I worked in an accountants' office in the City and it was full on suit and tie. Certainly no one bothers with a tie now and the suits are also becoming less and less popular. DH works in finance and pre covid when they were going into the office they were all smart casual.

I think workplaces in general are becoming a lot less formal and less hierarchical.

I don't really get it either. Growing up I had musical instrument teachers who I would address by their first names, and I definitely respected them. The head of my junior conservatoire was always known by her first name too, and I have never respected someone more in my life. Having said that, I would feel weird to call my GP anything other than Dr Surname, even though she calls me by my first name (I'm a lot younger than her though)

I think schools often remain quite old fashioned in some respects, I wonder if people would agree with me. Eg. It’s still very much expected that pupils will live at home with ‘mum and dad’, and I’ve seen something as innocuous as being a single parent throw people. Uniform too is bizarre to me, I’m all for a school jumper but the blazer and tie look makes no sense to me. I think it must depend where you work but there’s certainly a general small c conservatism in the schools I’ve been in. So a lot of people consider the Miss/Sir dynamic important.

I live in Denmark. The only place Ive seen my marital status used is on my polling card. The teachers at school are Gitte, Bente, Lena etc. Our doctor is Marianne. I am only called by my first name.

@StrictlyAFemaleFemale good point! The marital status aspect of it hadn’t even occurred to me. It’s very annoying that we don’t have a generic salutation like ‘sir’. I insist On being Ms in retiring and that’s actually one of the things that has confused people at work I mentioned above - people have asked me if I’m divorced 🙄

*in writing!

Uniform too is bizarre to me, I’m all for a school jumper but the blazer and tie look makes no sense to me

I get the uniform thing from the POV that it will mean kids aren't singled out for wearing non fashionable or cheaper clothes (in theory, not sure it works like that in practice) but otherwise I'm with you. It's so arbitrary.

To sum up, I haven't got an issue with teachers being Mr or Ms surname. I understand the boundaries thing, that makes sense to me. I just felt it was oddly formal given that in my own experience I have never referred to another adult that way.

I do not agree it is inherently more respectful to address people that way, however. No one has yet explained why it is!

It’s very annoying that we don’t have a generic salutation like ‘sir’.

We do. It's Ma'am.

I would crease up laughing if addressed as Ma'am.

I'm a nurse- at first visit we ask patients what they would prefer to be called. The vast majority are fine with given names but we do get people who prefer Mr/Mrs Smith etc.
Likewise on a professional level I would liaise with the Doctors as Dr Brown, never just John or Jane.

School is the only place I have done it.

Was Sir and Miss when I was at school. Still think that was weird.

Was even more weird when I went back there to work and was being called Sir.

Does anyone, genuinely, want their 15 year old son to be calling out Hey, Brenda! I don't get how to do this maths? to the teacher?

My DS would be absolutely mortified at first and then start to find it funny and take the piss. That's not how I want him behaving in school.

I'm genuinely bemused that anyone can't see that there is a difference in status between teachers and pupils and that the relationship is a formal one. I think it's particularly dangerous in terms of safeguarding when the boundaries between 'friendship' and 'equals' starts to be blurred.

It would not occur to me to think this was some sort of 'power play' by teachers - but then, every single day on this site someone starts a thread having a dig at teachers. I feel sorry for them.

It would not occur to me to think this was some sort of 'power play' by teachers - but then, every single day on this site someone starts a thread having a dig at teachers

Erm, no one, including me, said it was a power play thing. I said I fully understood it was about boundaries.

When I was applying for my first teaching job over 40 years ago, the first interview I had was at a (state) school where the pupils called female teachers Ma'am. I had never come across that in my life, and it really weirded me out, as a 21-year-old. I was SO glad not to be offered the job!

Every year there is a student who asks me my real name. I tell them. They then use it for about 5 minutes before becoming overwhelmed by the agony and reverting to miss or mum

@ChimaeraEgg

I work in a school and regularly have to phone parents. I always address them as Mr/Mrs Smith, never first names

If the school calls me I just get addressed as X's mum 🤣

That's because the days of assuming that John Smiths mum is Mrs Smith are long gone.

Back in the day unmarried mums gave their children their own name. But now so many children of unmarried parents are given the Dads name, and not every married woman changes her name.

callingon
I have a mixed relationship with uniform. I hate fancy single supply uniforms and would be very much happy with a dress code instead of a uniform, but I don'tknow it it would work because in my experience there is a weird culture in some English state schools. There's too many people who can't get their head around the fact that 'black school shoes, not trainers' means that an expensive branded pair of trainers in all black is still not school uniform, or that 'no leggings' means no leggings. Then there's this anti-education position that comes up on here where posters pile on to encourage each other that a student who has ruined 32 other students' lesson by arguing with the teacher over a rule they didn't like is apparently totally fine and any sanction is a form of bullying. Expecting students to be polite to peers and teachers is apparently an exercise in blind obedience and bullying. That's before you get to the loud minority of parents who actively seek conflict wherever they can, presumably because they still think they're scoring points against Mr Brown who told them to tuck their shirt in 20 years ago.

I would love to work in a non-uniform school where students and staff are on first names,there's a traditional curriculum and high expectations alongside opportunities to be outdoors and engage with the arts. The sad thing is I can't see that sort of school working here.

I'm 32 and never in my adult life have I addressed another adult using their surname

Don't you ever refer to friends by their surname? So my friend Bob Jones is always called Jones.

@callingon

I think schools often remain quite old fashioned in some respects, I wonder if people would agree with me. Eg. It’s still very much expected that pupils will live at home with ‘mum and dad’, and I’ve seen something as innocuous as being a single parent throw people. Uniform too is bizarre to me, I’m all for a school jumper but the blazer and tie look makes no sense to me. I think it must depend where you work but there’s certainly a general small c conservatism in the schools I’ve been in. So a lot of people consider the Miss/Sir dynamic important.

It’s practise for a suit

Don't you ever refer to friends by their surname? So my friend Bob Jones is always called Jones.

Nope. I had heard of others doing it but assumed it was a posh thing tbh.