To be furious the teacher told my ten year old she stinks?

[madsymads]

Family meal yesterday at an Indian restaurant. Might have been a bit heavy on garlic and spices.

DD was quiet when I picked her up today (she had been to after school club) and then suddenly started crying. I of course asked what was wrong and she said that this morning she had gone up to her teachers desk to ask something and the teacher (DD demonstrated) pulled a face and said 'ew, go and sit down, get away from me. What have you eaten? It smells awful.'

Obviously this led to quite a lot of unkind comments all day.

Completely inappropriate. Or AIBU?

What an odious woman.

When an incident happened to my s I rang a mum of a child in his class and asked her to ask her S what had happened. She then rang me back and relayed what he had told her. I then knew what my S had told me was correct and over embelished . I then spoke to the school.

madsymads, I hope you'll let us know how it goes.

I'm also interested in the type of school your child attends. (without wanting you to out yourself). Is it some little village school somewhere, where 98% of the children are white or white british? Or is it somewhere with a bigger ethnic mix? In which case, surely the teacher would be more used to the smell of curry???

BTW, kids fart. A lot.

There isn't a lot you can do for your kids regarding being teased by other children at school, but you can definitely stand up for them when (supposedly trusted) adults are concerned.

Tell your daughter that most adults (if not most kids) have a filter between their brains and their mouths. Some don't, but that's their problem and not a reflection of you.

Upsetting your DD wasn't very nice, but neither is being made to feel ill by someone elses bad breath/body odour etc. The teacher could have been more tactful in how SHE dealt with it, but i don't think you can blame her for the other childrens reactions.
Do you really think other children wouldn't have commented regardless? When i was at school (albeit some 11 years ago) the Asian kids were made fun of day in day out because of the constant indian food smell on them, it's what kids (unfortunately) do. It's not fair, or nice, and there's nothing your DD could do about it, but they would have done it regardless of the teacher making a comment.
Garlic is absolutely the worst, it's not just breath, it comes out of your pores in your sweat etc. It's not pleasant to have someone with really bad day old garlic breath/body odour sat next to you/talking in your face etc, and you can't expect people not to say "can you move away from me" if the smell is bothering them.
Eating it when you're going to be in close quarters with other people/have to face to face talk isn't very considerate you know. Giving a little leeway of how the teacher probably worded it compared to how your DD reported it to you (In my experience kids always embellish) she was a bit insensitive, but to blame the teacher for the other childrens reactions isn't being fair on your part either.
You chose to eat heavily garlic infused food the night before she had school, and your OP suggests you're aware of the effect this has on breath/body odour. Maybe, you need to take partial responsibility for her getting bullied for sending her in to school when she smelled so badly? The poor girl could have showered and brushed her teeth before going and it's still going to spend the rest of the day if not two, leaking out of her and smelling absolutely awful to everyone around her.

Victim blaming. Nice. OP doncha know it's all your fault for daring to cook something other than meat and two veg? Apparently the smell of garlic forces people to be rude. Especially to children

Hope you're able to get some kind of resolution when you go in.

The teacher could have been more tactful in how SHE dealt with it, but i don't think you can blame her for the other childrens reactions.

Of course you can. Anyone who has been around kids for 5 minutes would now how a comment like that would play out.

You cannot and you must not let this go. That is abuse

For the love of fuck. Seriously? You need to get out more, maybe ask a social worker of you can shadow them for a day. It disgusts me that you use the term 'abuse' so lightly and thus diminish the word and actual abuse even further.

It was definitely insensitive. Some people don't always understand how a relatively innocent comment might be taken by a sensitive person. But a quiet word should be sufficient to make the teacher realise this. The comments saying she is unfit for the classroom are a massive over-reaction. People make mistakes.

The fact that her comment then precipitated teasing from the rest of her classmates is enough to warrant a chat about it. Talk to the teacher in question and tell her your little girl cried on the way home over her comment.

Spit tea out all you like.

Substitute any other scenario.

A carer to an elderly person.
A retail assistant to a customer.
A bank manager to a client.
A GP to a patient.
A solicitor.
A funeral director.

It doesn't work, does it? But because it's a child, and a child who ate food that "stinks", it's acceptable.

Telling another human person that they smell smell is not "relatively innocent".

It is unkind.

Teachers are not allowed to be unkind to the children in their care.

The power dynamic is such that unkindness becomes cruelty.

Of course it's abusive for an adult in a position of power to make commrnts to a child about how badly they smell. In hearing of the rest of the class beggars belief, frankly.

Teachers don't get to be rude to little children. They don't get to upset them because they smell.

The power dynamic is this situation is already 100% in the teacher's favour.

That is why it is abusive to take advantage of your power to offer an insult that a child has no way to stand up to.

This is a serious incident.

I don't believe it can have happened as reported because it is so far kutside what I can imagine any of the teachers I know and have worked with thinking is acceptable.

The fact that there are people who would excuse this behaviour towards a child by a teacher baffles me, frankly.

Why do people insist on perpetuating this myth that teachers are sainted humans?

Have their not been cases of teachers abusing children in their care, being members of the BNP, alcoholics, cheats, liars?

I think this stance that 'well I am sure a teacher wouldn't ...' is really harmful.

For all we know, the teacher could have been coming out with charming little one liners like this for years, but remained unchallenged, because a teacher wouldn't say that.

Humiliating a child in front of the class by making a comment about the way they smell is not "a mistake".

If you don't know that it is an unjustifiable abuse of your power as a teacher, you should not be in a classroom.

Your first duty, before you teach a single thing to anyone, is not to cause harm to the children in your care.

This teacher caused harm by doing something that was very obviously going to upset and humiliate.

If you need it pointed out to you that a person responsible for a 10 year old shouldn't make personal remarks about them in hearing of their peers, then you are not really fit for being out in public, never mind teaching.

I don't believe teachers are saintly.

I just find this incident, as described, so far beyond what would be acceptable in most schools that I presume there has been some inaccuracy in the telling.

If it was exactly as described, it would ve an extremely serious matter fir the teacher concerned.

Not just something you fix with a cosy chat.

Doin - but that does happen.

Teachers DO sexually abuse children, they DO go on inappropriate websites, they DO steal school equipment, they DO drink alcohol at school.

I am not for a second saying these things are frequent occurrences but they do happen. Saying you don't believe it (my daughter) because it's so far out of your experience is quite offensive, actually.

Family meal yesterday at an Indian restaurant. Might have been a bit heavy on garlic and spices I can't explain exactly why this opening statement annoys me but it does.

The opposite. Indian cooking is the most popular cuisine in the UK. It's not remotely unusual or exotic.

I can't believe so many people are defending the teacher. If this is indeed true and that needs to be clarified, then the teacher was unkind, unprofessional, incredibly silly and this child will suffer the consequences emotionally for a while. No one ever forgets it when a teacher genuinely hurts their feelings... 30 years on and I still remember the shame of a teacher saying loudly in front of the whole class "you are not always right MrsHiddleston no one likes a little miss know it all" - I was bloody right as well which adds to he injustice.

This teacher needs to be reminded of professionalism and the potential for feeding bullies with comments like this.

I pretty much never believe firsthand accounts from pupils about what happened at school without doing a bit of digging.

It is rare for teachers to bully and humiliate children in class these days.

Despite the disingenuous bullshit on this thread, telling people they smell is still considered a socially complicated and likely to upset and insult.

I would expect setious consequences for a teacher behaving like this in class (even if my child wasn't the smelly one that day) and as such I would wantbto be very clear about what exactly had been saud and under what circumstances.

Am totally amazed that anyone would seek to defend this teacher and her foul comment.

I'm saddened but not amazed. On MN there are always a cohort of people waiting to rabidly defend anything a teacher does, no matter how unprofessional or horrible it is.

Why would that annoy you Dexra?

It's not on, you're right to go and find out what happened OP.

It is rare for teachers to bully and humiliate children in class these days

Still more common than it should be.