to still be offended by this teacher?

[danieladarling]

Our children are half Brazilian and half Jamaican. My youngest DS2 is VERY fair but has light brown afro hair (not a big afro), a dusky tone to his skin and greeny blue eyes. He had a parent's evening last Thursday and my DH got there first. I was dropping off our older son at rugby and was a little bit late. When my DH arrived, he sat down at a chair with a sign that had our son's name on it. You know the typical parent's evening setup. After about a minute of sitting, one of the teachers came up and said to him "Hi, I think you're in the wrong chair. This is for 's parents. Maybe you should sit at your child's table instead." My DH then replied, "No, I am s dad". She laughed and said, "No, seriously you should probably move. When his parents come, they'll want to sit there". Again he explained that he was DS2's dad. She then walked away from him and came back with the headteacher! They both asked him to move away from the table and exit the school! [shocked] So he did. We arrived at the school (Me and DS2) and he was standing by the gates looking a bit upset. I asked him what he was doing there and we went inside. We then sat down at the table and began to listen to teachers talk about DS2. I wanted to give those women a piece of my mind but DS2 and my DH begged me not to. [embarrassed]I can tell that my DH is still upset about it. I'm thinking of lodging a complaint but I need my trusty mumsnetters to tell me whether I'm being a drama queen!
I'm the Brazilian parent, he's the Jamaican, if that wasn't clear.

Oh bloody hell, you seem intent on calling my family, my life and everything about me fake. My daughter doesn't attend Z's school for MUSIC LESSONS!! She goes to a different school for MUSIC LESSONS and that is what I meant. You don't allow for mistakes on mumsnet do you! I've come asking for advice about a racial incident and instead been flamed by you. To those who care, the letter is being compiled as we speak. DH is helping me out. Hopefully, by the end of the week it'll be in the post.

Are you sure it is a racial thing then OP and not just that the teacher felt threatened or didn't recognize him?

Definitely letter to governors. The weird disbelief shows a serious lack of basic understanding about modern families... or, basic, err, humanity as I like to call it :)

How upsetting. Don't bother with the class teacher or ht as they themselves created this incident. Racism needs to be called out even in today's 'enlightened' world.

Good luck,

Don't shout, dear Nobody can infer words you haven't actually bothered to type.

I have re-read the OP and I can't see where the 'racism' is. I am hyper-sensitive to racism but the only mention of skin colour and race is from the OP. Are you sure it's just not a case of mistaken identity. I'm always getting children and their parents mixed up, it has nothing to do with whatever skin colour or race they are.

Why wouldn't he have been challenged if he'd been white? The whole point is that the child is mixed race; if he didn't look "black enough" to be a Jamaican man's son, we can only assume he wouldn't have been white enough to be a white man's man's son either. By the same flawed logic, that is.

Anyway, welcome to mumsnet, great first post to get us all talking
I read the opening post and it seemed so unlikely that I checked if the OP was a regular or not. First timer. So yes, a controversial topic. There's another 'controversial' first timer showing 'Active', too. This is what MN has become, a place where an innocent first-timer can't post without being considered suspect. I'm sorry, OP, it happens because there are so many made-up, goady stories nowadays.

Eh? So, you should assume it's racist first and then ask questions later? Um. no thanks. My DC is a minority, can't go around thinking that everyone is racist, if anything I find people are more anxious about being seen as racist.

It's not so much as 'ruling out racism', it has been shouted, from the very beginning of this thread that this is exactly that. Though there is no indication from the teacher that she asked him to leave because of his colour. Pretty sure he won't be the only non-white parent in the school.

Regardless of what the teachers reasons were for thinking you were in the wrong seat she could be forgiven for mentioning it once but pressing the point to asking him to leave when you'd pointed out she was wrong is insane. I taught for 15 years & very rarely was faced with 2 parents I was familiar with. Had a wide selection of parents step parents and partners so if her implication was he didn't look like dc she is insane.

Ds1 is 13 and ds2 is 7 and there are two dds at the same school (joined in the last year) - does the head not remember you from your dds' evenings, or have they not happened yet? Hopefully it won't get repeated!

I'm surprised that so many people are shocked that both parents are not known at school especially in a short amount of time. My dh wouldn't be known to ds teacher as he has never picked him up, taken him to school or made parents evening. His work means he isn't home until bedtime and parents evening are normally finished by then. Any annual leave is taken to spend time with ds in holidays
The issue is that even after asking is op's dh was the father he was questioned twice more and then asked to leave!!

Dreadful behaviour by the teacher

When you write to complain it would be interesting to find out how many other parents weren't known by the teachers they spoke to - and how many of them were effectively told they were liars when they identified themselves as the parent and ordered off school property and how many were allowed to stay. And the racial breakdown of all other parents and children that found themselves in this situation. And if they have ever before had somebody identify themselves as a parent when they weren't.

Because I suspect if you get the answers to those questions they will be pretty sure as to quite how unreasonable their behaviour was.

So how many of you actually believe that the OPs dh would have been asked to leave the building if he had been a white parent new to the school with a child who looked different to him in some way not involving race?

(say, very tall while he was very short, ginger-haired while his was brown, hawk nosed while he was pug nosed)

Or for that matter if he had been a black or Asian parent with a child of the same race who looked nothing like him?

Because I have had some odd reactions from people in this country first meeting members of my extended and racially mixed family. On the other hand I have never heard anyone express surprise that a blond, blue-eyed person like me should have produced a dark-haired, brown-eyed and olive-skinned - but equally Caucasian- daughter.

It would be hard to account for this by anything other than a subconscious feeling that people should reproduce with people of the same race.

I still want to know what sort of school it is. It must be tiny, or they wouldn't be able to have named chairs for everyone.

How does your dh know it was the teacher who takes him for reading if you never saw that teacher again and she clearly has never met your dh? None of this makes sense.
Is it a private school, because then I could understand having lots of different teachers at primary level?

I have been teaching for a long time in a lot of different schools and have never seen named chairs for a child.

It's surprising that a school has this few pupils yet the teacher who asked you to leave one minute is a different teacher to the one you spoke to the next? If it was a massive school with loads of teachers it would make more sense, but named seats? It's a bit odd.

You know the typical parent's evening setup

I have never been to a parents' evening with a set up like that.

Yes, I would be offended if that happened to me, too. Can't believe someone would actually be asked to leave the premises just because a teacher didn't recognise them...

Shocking!!!

I think there is a lot more to this...

I'd still like it pointing out why it is a 'racial' thing. The only person to mention race was the op.