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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think that I should complain about a teacher when DD (15) says no

222 replies

Menashaday · 12/05/2012 15:35

yesterday DD (15) reported that a teacher at school has stuck a plaster over her mouth because she was talking too much. There is a bit of history about being chatty in class and this seems to be have been jovial and light hearted. DD isn't upset or complaining and she says I shouldn't complain because things would be worse. The teacher also did it to a boy in the class and shouted at him when he took it off. Hence DD keeping hers on!

This feels wrong and actually that this teacher should not be teaching - she retires this year in any case.

Advice pleaseConfused

OP posts:
AgentZigzag · 12/05/2012 19:06

I agree with your post Worra, but the OP said her DD doesn't have a good relationship with the teacher and doesn't want her mum to complain because it'd be the worse for her if she did, so not just because the whole situation was a lighthearted classroom jape.

Going along with it, but possibly not happy and laughing? (and I'm definitely not saying the darling children shouldn't be made unhappy by the nasty teachers Grin it's the humiliation part I'm not keen on).

EndoplasmicReticulum · 12/05/2012 19:14

ZigZag - yes, for a joke. Like 70isalimit mine do kung fu, if they misbehave they have to do press-ups.

I've already said I wouldn't do it as a teacher.

seeker · 12/05/2012 19:16

I also think that at 15 things would have to be pretty bad before a parent should intervene in something like this. Maybe it was misjudged. But to call is abuse and humiliation seems to me to be a tad insulting to people who have been really abused and humiliated......

AgentZigzag · 12/05/2012 19:18

I wouldn't be a teacher full stop tbf Endo Grin

Patience of saints (on the whole).

Sunscorch · 12/05/2012 19:18

The daughter says it was a joke.
She took it as a joke.

It was a joke.

Bigpants1 · 12/05/2012 20:06

It started as a joke. How long is a Period in Secondary School-45mins-longer if double period.
A joke would have to be really good/funny to still be laughing about it 45 mins approx later. Would you still have thought it funny to see someone with a plaster on them after this length of time, or would the novelty have worn off?
The situation doesn't read like it stayed a joke, and if it's really ok for the teacher to do this here, then why aren't teachers doing it every day in schools as a penalty for talking? Maybe cos it isn't really good practise, & Ofstead wouldn't "get" the joke.

Nanny0gg · 12/05/2012 20:18

The teacher shouldn't have done it, lighthearted or not. And if she was at the end of her tether because she couldn't control the class then it wouldn't have been lighthearted at all.
However - Actually they don't have a good relationship at all. Because she is not a good teacher and DD is too chatty
Have you had a discussion with your DD about appropriate behaviour? Why should she make the teacher's job harder and disrupt others' education because presumably your DD doesn't like/respect her?

It's a two-way street.

BoneyBackJefferson · 12/05/2012 20:20

Bigpants

we also don't know when in the lesson the teacher put the plaster on them.

ragged · 12/05/2012 20:21

I would conclude my DD got what she deserved.

DebiTheScot · 12/05/2012 20:27

As a teacher I think you have to take this further. And I'm quite shocked at the number of people on here who think it was ok!
It's not child abuse as some have suggested but it is absolutely not ok for a teacher to do this to a student (or for a parent to do to a child).
Taking plasters off hurts and I can imagine it could really hurt pulling off lips.

I am really shocked that a teacher would do this.

nizlopi · 12/05/2012 20:29

When I was a little girl a boy in my class had a teacher put sellotape over his mouth. His mother complained and she was fired.

Mrsrobertduvall · 12/05/2012 20:32

Tell your daughter to stop talking so much. Sounds as if she disrupts the lesson for other students...great.

whathasthecatdonenow · 12/05/2012 20:35

I'm a teacher and I wouldn't do it, even with classes I have a really good relationship with.

However, I have seen excellent teachers reduced to tears by the so-called 'model pupil' who decides to play up for them regularly. At 15, and behaving in all of her other lessons, this girl is making a choice to ruin the learning of others in this particular class.

ImperialBlether · 12/05/2012 20:36

Funny how the teachers get better the quieter she is. She sees this teacher as being a bad teacher, whilst making life very difficult for her. It's really hard to concentrate when someone is rabbiting on all the time. It's hard to do justice to your subject when all you can hear is someone chatting or whispering. Her other teachers don't have to put up with that, do they? That's why they are better teachers.

MsKittyFane · 12/05/2012 20:37

Agree with lago Teachers use humour to defuse situations where discipline is needed. A 15 year old student who constantly chats (and is infact a disruptive pain in the backside) would respond well to a humorous teacher who says "right, I've asked you to be quiet and you're still chatting... Where are my plasters? Come on, close your mouth, I'm taping it shut!" They do not respond well to a teacher who snaps "Will you please be quiet, rant rant rant, here's a detention"

As others have said, it was a joke and OP's DC knew it was a joke and took part in the joke.

MsKittyFane · 12/05/2012 20:45

Also agree that OP's DD needs to be told at home that her constant chatting in this lesson is out of order.
Who does the DD think she is chatting throughout this particular lesson?
Has she no manners? Or does she just use them in certain situations? Either way, it is rude and disruptive and the teacher did well to keep her sense if humour.
If it were me, she'd have been asked to leave the room until she could show some manners. The DC probably hate me. :o

Sunscorch · 12/05/2012 21:02

A joke would have to be really good/funny to still be laughing about it 45 mins approx later.

You don't know when it happened. You certainly don't know that the child was expected to keep it on for the whole lesson. And neither does the parent.

In fact, it seems more like something very lighthearted that happened in class, which she is now deeply regretting ever telling her mother about at all.

Floggingmolly · 12/05/2012 21:19

child abuse Hmm. It is not a sackable offence. Bet it taught your dd to stop her chattering though, where being told to stop did not.
Let it go, for God's sake!

BBQJuly · 12/05/2012 21:27

YANBU. Definitely complain.

Mrsmuppethead · 12/05/2012 21:35

I wouldn't complain..not if it was a 15 yo and she wasn't upset.

DioneTheDiabolist · 12/05/2012 21:40

When I was 15 one of my science teachers clipped me round the back of the head for making a sarky comment. It was a joke. I not only found it funny at the end of the class, I still find it funny 23 years later.

OP, your DD says she isn't bothered by it. She was there and understands the context. Are you doubting her version of events?

DebiTheScot · 12/05/2012 22:05

Even if it was meant as a joke and taken as a joke it was still wrong and unprofessional and should not have happened. Whether or not she deserved it or it worked is irrelevant.

WorraLiberty · 12/05/2012 22:08

My DS (12yrs) says his English teacher throws pens at him (good naturedly) when they get into a debate about something and the teacher loses.

He thinks it's hilarious and says "So sir, not only are you wrong...but now you're wrong without a pen" Grin

The teacher knows which kids can take a joke and which of them (and their parents) probably can't.

It's part of getting to know your pupils I suppose.

Sunscorch · 12/05/2012 22:17

The teacher knows which kids can take a joke and which of them (and their parents) probably can't.

And it's a shame when that pupil-teacher relationship is stunted by the attitude of parents.

WorraLiberty · 12/05/2012 22:26

Yes I think it's a great shame.

It's much easier I think for teachers to have a good relationship with Primary aged children than Senior school aged children.

As kids get older, they obviously find different things amusing and teachers will act in a more age appropriate way when joking around.

That's why I wondered earlier in the thread, if some of the posts were from parents who perhaps don't have teenage children yet...and are looking at this from the prospective of Primary children.