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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to think teachers form opinion of pupil based on older siblings

63 replies

whattodonow1 · 31/03/2012 22:25

just my older brother used to skive school, get caught smoking, do no homework. When I jóined the school 3 years later I always felt the teachers had a negative perception of me even though I was completely different.

OP posts:
MNHubbie · 02/04/2012 01:56

I'd hate to think I ever do this but I must confess it can be there.

I had a girl joining me in year 7 with a very familiar surname. Her older brother was... interesting. He would roll up a fag and smoke it in class then baracade himself in a room to enjoy it before escaping out the window and over the fence.

Her first words to me were "I'm nothing like my brother". I didn't need telling. I had checked if she was related, I took a deep breath, I moved on and then I did as I always do; I treated the first lesson as a fresh start and a chance to get to know them all as people rather than names/relations.

I'd have been daft not to check up a few things in advance given her brother, I've been burned by not having strategies ready if required before (but at the same time vindicated. When the 8th child in a row from the same family was expelled before year 9 left the school I got an unexpected bonus from it. I was walking down the road late at night when a group of youths set out to mug me. The one leading them stopped and asked my name. I told him and he got the guys to back off saying "he is the only one who treated X like an individual and not just as my brother." Of course X was a pain in the arse and other teachers coped with him better by being ready in advance but long term... he was coming round more in my classes than theirs. If he hadn't been expelled he would have got a D for me when failing every other subject). But at the same time I never let any preparation show. It is genuinely a fresh start for all just sometimes I have a set of work ready for a safety net just in case but the pupil in question would not get sent out for being a sibling but for having behaved in a way to earn it.

The girl in question? Sweetest student ever! Hard working, lovely and a joy to teach. She made me a get well soon card and is very helpful and polite to others. She goes through the same hell as her brother but it doesn't darken her.

You can't help but worry, you can't help but be bemused but you can't let it change you or show.

I have another female student. This one is in year 8. Her brother was a gifted scientist with a real grasp of the scientific method, a healthy scepticism for newspaper science and great knowledge. I would never, ever bring that up when trying to convince her that there is a point to studying science, to reading in general, to acquiring the damnedest bit of knowledge from anything but gossip magazines, for understanding that culture did not just start 2 years ago and that Einstein, Hawkings and Dawkins have done more for the human race on their worst day ever than Justin fuckin Beiber will ever do in his life.

I don't compare identical twin sisters I teach on separate sides of the year (sometimes one straight after the other). There is no point. They are different.

My brother did have this at school but so did I. They'd bug him for not achieving as much as me and they'd bug me for not being as good at sport. When my sister finally arrived at the school she told them not to bother even trying and they didn't as she was very different from us both.

It used to happen a lot but if you did it openly in class now you would be in a lot of trouble and it is highly counter productive. If I caught a member of my staff openly comparing a student to a sibling in class I would be having a very serious chat with them.

It happens. It is sometimes useful to try things that work with one sibling with another but it is never helpful to highlight you are doing that or get all stroppy and compare one to the other if it doesn't work. It is unprofessional and it will only create a negative relationship. I will ask about older siblings. I will use the fact that I know their parents quite well because I taught X or Y for 5 years as a stick or carrot but I will not say "your brother could do this".

Every child is different and deserves to be treated as such.

Chilenachica · 02/04/2012 03:40

In my experience, yes. Although I'm not a teacher and base my response on my experience following my sisters through school. One teacher positive assumptions based on sister No 2, therefore disappointed by me. Another who ignored me to the point of physically pushing me to the back of the class because of being "her" sister. Other than that the head, deputy head and a good few other teachers verbalised the comparison "your sister would/woudn't have done X" etc. etc ad nauseum. I am so glad that here it is normal practice to put twins in different classes, means my DC's teachers tend not to realise they are twins until I tell them. I haven't come across any teachers here who compare them.

lifechanger · 02/04/2012 05:52

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

LtEveDallas · 02/04/2012 06:10

Not just siblings, my French teacher in Secondary School hated me because of my cousin...within a few months the feeling was mutual. Horrid rotten cow made every lesson a nightmare for me. Annoying thing was that I was quite good at languages, and wanted to do German - but we couldn't do one without the other at my school. I have an irrational hatred of French (the language not the people) now, all because of her.

Born2BRiiiled · 02/04/2012 08:28

You see, almost all of you are talking about your own experience, years ago. This is just one of the many ways in which teaching is improved now, on the whole.

everlong · 02/04/2012 08:39

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Theas18 · 02/04/2012 08:41

IME not these days.

I suppose it helps that I have GBG with 3 schools years between each so DD2 is at the same school that DD1 was but 6yrs behind. DD2 is yr8 and DD1 has left now and some teachers are only just waking up to the fact that they are related- which is great!

Bonsoir · 02/04/2012 08:47

Teachers/schools definitely form an opinion of families.

TroublesomeEx · 02/04/2012 11:00

Born2B I completely agree with that. This is the sort of thing that happened when I was at school, but teachers nowadays (ones who are doing the job properly) take great pains to get to know a child as an individual.

However, Bonsoir is also right, that we do form opinions of families. You can't not. It always helps to use your family knowledge to 'interpret' but not 'judge' a situation.

MNHubbie · 02/04/2012 11:17

folkgirl thank you for putting it much better and more succinctly than I managed to.

TroublesomeEx · 02/04/2012 11:21
Grin
YonWhaleFish · 02/04/2012 11:27

YANBU OP, happened to me! I got bullied by a teacher as she didn't like my brother who was a bit of a tearaway whereas I was a straight A student. It happens!

PiousPrat · 02/04/2012 14:04

Thinking about it, it can definitely just be the family name, rather than just an older sibling. My Dad was a swimming instructor and had a couple of, erm, differences of opinion with my high school swimming teacher at training sessions and conferences. I have always been my Dad's mini me in looks and temperament so when I started at the high school that combined with our quite unusual surname meant the swimming teacher knew exactly whose daughter I was and decided to treat me the same way as he did my Dad, by being condescending. I don't think he counted on me having Dads temper and Mums intellect and vocabulary. After trying to have a pop at me in class a couple of times and getting shown up by a tiny 11 year old, he declared me incapable of learning and banned me from the swimming pool. Since he wasn't a terribly personable teacher and was mostly disliked by the whole school, I was the envy of my year ;)

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