To have no idea what to say to this girl?

[DrSeuss]

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.

'slackers and slappers' jesus!

It's teenagers though. Honestly, they can't wait for anything - phone must be checked NOW, food eaten NOW, water Coke swigged NOW.

What winds me up is kids who get up to "put something in the bin" when I am talking. When challenged on it the indignant response is unfailingly that they were ONLY putting rubbish in the bin and do I really WANT them to litter the classroom ...

I have a friend who works for a large international airline....she spent a full day in a beauty salon as part of her initial training to be taught how the airline wanted her to do her hair and make-up. She even has to wear a certain shade of lipstick.
Maybe your student is preparing well

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

Badger, what did you say to her after that?

Calmly told her to calm down, jokingly told her that as a female she should be able to multitask (completely tongue in cheek, just trying to diffuse the situation) and repeated my original question.

I'm mystified as to why a teenager putting make-up on in a lesson is such an outrageous event. It's not that big a deal. It's low level disruption. Not what she should be doing but easily dealt with.

I'm impressed she tried to hide it!

its not allowed in my dds school they still wear it but if they try it on in class time like that chances are they are sent out/ detention/ special learning centre plus a phone call home

the only time make up is acceptable is drama (for a performance) and dance (for a performance)

there is more to life than makeup apparently

Love it. The girl is disrespectful enough to ignore you and put in make up in the middle of the lesson and you are the bad guy for being patronizing and 'maybe your lesson was boring'.

I think it's more. She's the child, you are the adult. Act it.

She could have just told her that anything besides studying was unacceptable in her classroom and left it at that.

This is bring back memories as a former teacher.

I remember a Y11 girl yelling (when I wouldn't let her go to the loo, a few minutes after class had started just after break) 'I'm bleeding', man Miss, do you want us to bleed all over your floor??'

Lovely. Can't remember what I did now. Think the rest of her friends started going on about her human rights yawn and I had a mutiny on my hands.

Don't miss those days although I have dined out on many a story.....

Oh yes, the idea that if you tell a girl to wait to use the loo you will have a horror scene on your hands :)

I've also had the 'denying my human rights' line, about water bottles as well (I hate them.)

No one is saying pupils should apply make up in class or that the girl shouldn't have been told off - just that applying makeup in class is no better or worse than any other non-classroom activity. Acting like it is somehow worse than all the millions of others of ways that teenagers find to piss around in class is really not on. It’s pretty offensive to act like the fact that the girl wore eyeliner she was somehow stupid or someone you wouldn’t want your daughter to turn into. Attitudes like this do girls more harm than a bit of eyeliner.

I was a Goth for almost all of the time I was in secondary school... If my eyeliner was smudged... i still kind of am now gah it doesnt bear thinking about...I would straight up redo it.

I think if you consider that to be disruptive the rest of the class must be incredibly calm children of the corn types and focused and not using their phones and chatting and all the other ridiculous stuff teenagers and this is exactly what I got up to...Still went on to travel the world and go to uni get up to.

Mm, we have a few young women at school who see it as an infringement of their human rights if you question why they are applying another layer of mascara instead of actually doing some bloody work. You can go through behaviour ladder, sanction, have scintillating engrossing lessons till you are blue in the face. You just get
The ones that make me roll my eyes are the ones who prior to pe on the field apply another layer, stand about so not to disturb the work of art, then put yet more on when they return.

Deny a boy access to the toilet. First retort 'denying human rights', still refusal (politely, non confrontational). Second retort 'do you expect me to tie a know in my wanger then?'

Sorry knot !!

YANBU OP

If pupils don't get that they are in school to learn the subjects they've chosen to take rather than reapplying make up, then perhaps things have got worse in schools than I thought.

I also agree about the Pankhursts, can't really see them asking the policemen if they would mind awfully stopping battering them so they could just give their noses a little powder......

And you don't come across as patronising at all. You sound like you actually give a shit about your pupils which is what I had always thought people wanted in a teacher. Perhaps not, eh?

TA in a High School here. I asked a teenage girl to put her mobile phone away in class and open her jotter, she refused because she got great 4g reception in that particular room.

I was very respectful when I asked, I said please!

Haha dot

My favourite was a boy who charged his phone behind my desk and didn't tell me. I of course tripped over it. I then got a mouthful of abuse for breaking his phone

If he'd asked if he could charge it, I'd have said yes!

Because it's ok now to have children in class

• doing their make up
• checking phones
• chatting etc...???

It's a school. They are there to learn. Make up can be redone at break time.the same that phone can only be checked at break time (and not between lessons)

Im wondering. That same teenager, if she is trying to have a small part time job, will it be ok too if she stops whatever she is doing to do her make up again? Maybe whilst she is serving customers? Or to make said customers wait because she is adjusting her eye liner?

I'm amazed at how little we are expecting from teenagers now.

It’s pretty offensive to act like the fact that the girl wore eyeliner she was somehow stupid or someone you wouldn’t want your daughter to turn into.

Wearing make up doesn't make someon stupid, which is not what the OP said. I think applying make up during a lesson means someone is pretty stupid though.

I don't want my daughter to turn into someon who values applying make up above learning.

I know that some school have ended up giving make up lessons to girls in a bid to avoid all the overly heavy make up (and not properly applied, looking awful).
Maybe they have a point. There is no need to reapply HR make up that often AND it is likely to look crap if you do.

Well, I think that's a bit unfair. I wouldn't have applied makeup in school because I was polite, but I wasn't hugely interested in learning all the time. I was keen to do well and motivated but sometimes I would be chatty with my friends or go into a daydream.

I have taught many lovely students who surreptitiously try to check phones or put makeup on or eat - if they try to hide it I don't mind that much!

You have to give the op shit in aibu. That's the rule.