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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To have no idea what to say to this girl?

107 replies

DrSeuss · 30/09/2015 19:08

A Y11, doing her make up in the middle of a lesson when she thought I wouldn't see.

Apparently, I am unreasonable as there is no way she can concentrate with even slightly smudged eye liner!
Funny, sad, terrifying. Her appearance is so important that a tiny flaw renders her incapable of thinking about her studies? Or anything else?
I asked what she wants to do for a living (air stewardess). I put it to her that, while a certain standard of personal presentation is required for this job, other things might also be needed and she would hardly be able to slack off to apply make up!
I 'd ask her if the Pankhursts were big on mascara but the irony would be lost on her. She's a bright girl, lots of potential.

Please God don't let DD turn out like that in ten years time.

OP posts:

Theycallmemellowjello · 30/09/2015 19:48

YABU - if you teach teenage girls and lived in society I'd have hoped you'd have noticed that an interest in one's appearance does not correlate positively or negatively with intelligence.

Theycallmemellowjello · 30/09/2015 19:51

And frankly the Pankhursts fought to let women be valued in society and education. Not held up to some arbitrary ideal of how women 'should' be then derided if they fall short of it.

MinecraftWonder · 30/09/2015 19:51

Discipline and respect should be expected.

A 'Mary, put it away please. I'd like you concentrating on the lesson now' would be sufficient. Not a patronising lecture about what job she'd like to do when she's older. Followed by hand-wringing about how terrifying it was. I bet the girl was at you op - deservedly IMO.

Theycallmemellowjello · 30/09/2015 19:52

Also -I 'd ask her if the Pankhursts were big on mascara but the irony would be lost on her. What is ironic here?

TheoriginalLEM · 30/09/2015 19:54

what the actual fuck difference does it make if it were state or private?

DurhamDurham · 30/09/2015 19:56

My youngest never leaves the house without makeup, she wears rather a lot of mascara and eyeliner.........she's just started Uni doing a Nursing degree so I don't think her fondness for makeup has impacted upon her too much. As far as I could see there wasn't a difference in A level results between her friends who wore makeup and those that didn't

ghostyslovesheep · 30/09/2015 19:57

a bright girl with potential can want to be cabin crew - even if you think it's beneath her

She's a teenager - I am guessing, as a teacher, you have met them before!

SlightlyJadedJack · 30/09/2015 19:58

I suspect some of the posters on this thread may be 15 you themselves with their responses. .

ghostyslovesheep · 30/09/2015 19:59

the Pankhursts where pretty smartly turned out btw

CantAffordtoLive · 30/09/2015 20:00

Wow. I'd like to send her back to my days at secondary school! A long time ago.

School is for learning. Applying make up during a lesson is bloody disgraceful.

BastardGoDarkly · 30/09/2015 20:02

Put it away or leave the class, would have sufficed.

MoonSandwich · 30/09/2015 20:03

I suspect her response was her being sarcastic and mouthy rather than her genuinely believing what she said.

Teen girls and teen boys can be very obsessed with their looks. They always have been.

My 12 year old niece was wearing foundation the other day. It looked awful.

I love the fact that the posters who are saying that you are patronizing are themselves being patronizing. I'm probably being patronizing myself now

APlaceOnTheCouch · 30/09/2015 20:06

She's a bright girl with lots of potential but you don't want your DD to turn out like her. Would you rather your DD wasn't bright, had no potential but was make-up free?

If she stopped mid-lesson to put make-up on then you should have dealt with it firmly. It sounds as though you tried the imposing discipline by humiliation technique. It's not one I liked as a pupil or admire as an adult. But tbh I'm judging you for coming on MN to post about a pupil. That seems a bit disrespectful to me.

Sodder · 30/09/2015 20:08

Applying make up during a lesson is bloody disgraceful

Amen.

lljkk · 30/09/2015 20:10

YADNBU

ghostyslovesheep · 30/09/2015 20:12

Put it away or leave the class, would have sufficed - this!

crystalgall · 30/09/2015 20:12

You don't sound like you've been etching very long...how long have you been in th classroom?

Teenage girls being teenage girls is par for the course. What do you mean exactly by 'I have no idea what to say to her'. Say to her about what??

The only think you need to say is 'put the makeup away. My
Classroom isn't your own personal dressing room'.

If she were in my class I would be a bit sarky like that and if she said she wanted to be an air stewardess I would have said that's fantastic...have you done some research...what makes you want to tondo it etc and engage her in conversation. That's what you do with your teen students. You talk to them.

crystalgall · 30/09/2015 20:13

Er Teaching not 'etching'

Acorn44 · 30/09/2015 20:15

If it was one of my Y11s, I'd have smiled sweetly, offered her my own 'magnifying' mirror (I too am an eye-liner-has-to be-right kind of girl) let her generally sort herself out and get comfortable ... and then ensured she made up for all the lost lesson time (and some) during a lunchtime detention.

crystalgall · 30/09/2015 20:16

Also can you imagine how teen girls will react if you start lecturing them about the suffragettes and how makeup is not what they fought for etc...how bloody embarrassing. They would laugh in your face!

I've had conversations about women and the media and expectations of beauty with GCSE classes before (for coursework). The girls really get into it and have intelligent conversations. But they have to be steered that way not sneered at

vdbfamily · 30/09/2015 20:20

I was hoping when my eldest started secondary school that make up would be banned but school policy is that 'subtle make-up' is fine. I checked the policies of our 2 other local secondaries and they were the same.How times have changed.

feebeecat · 30/09/2015 20:22

Am quite shocked at some of the responses on this thread - how can applying make-up during a lesson be anyways acceptable? In the same way she wouldn't be able to 'hold the flight I need to reapply' as cabin crew, neither could she do that in any other job - mid-lesson as a teacher? Wonder what the parents responses to that would be?

I'm also very old though, teachers in my school would have dealt with much more harshly, can't think how though as none of us would ever have dared to put that to the test.

badgergirl82 · 30/09/2015 20:23

Today I asked a girl to write the title oh, and please take your headphones out.

Didn't do it.

Polite reminder from me.

"I'M DOING IT, FOR GODS SAKE, YOU TOLD ME TO WRITE THE TITLE AND I AM, ONE THING ST A TIME. CHRIST.'

Le sigh.

missymayhemsmum · 30/09/2015 20:28

She needs to know that professional women who want respect don't do their makeup in public. Especially cabin crew who have very high standards for conduct in public. Maybe that's what you say? Putting on makeup in public is for slackers and slappers, sorry

Bakeoffcake · 30/09/2015 20:30

No, she shouldn't have been applying makeup in class. At my dds' school you aren't allowed visible makeup until Y11.

But you do sound very patronising OP. I expect the girl was trying to wind you up

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