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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Teacher 'donated' Dds money!

435 replies

WoWoWorrier · 13/10/2017 13:55

My daughter has a knack for 'finding pennies'. She is 8. She collects the 5ps/10ps she finds for sweeties and the 1ps and 2ps go in a piggy bank until it's full. She find a them outside on the floor.

On the way to school yesterday she was saying that she wanted a mini figit spinner from the machine outside our local newsagents.
She had been super good this week and I was already planning on giving her £2 as a reward but she said 'I might find a pound!' So to humour her 'abilities' I dropped a pound a few minutes later and she spotted it.

She was super excited.

When I picked her up from school she was quiet and when we got near the ship I asked her if she wanted to get her toy she told me she had been telling her friend she had found a pound on the way to school and the teacher said it wasn't hers to spend and told her to put it in the classroom charity collection box!!

Aibu to demand it back and be quite pissed off?

OP posts:
MistressDeeCee · 13/10/2017 21:14

The money was not dropped on the school premises therefore the teacher is wrong. It is nothing to do with her. If she believes all money found on the road must be donated then she can do that herself when she finds money. But it's not her place to impose that on a child, simply because she has some authority over them. Yes I would ask for it back. Let her go play God somewhere else.

soapboxqueen · 13/10/2017 21:19

OPs child probably said something like, "look what I found on the way to school" which more than likely means a route or path used by other children. It could also mean just outside the gate. Therefore it is perfectly reasonable for her to assume that it may have been lost by another student.

The fact that the OP sent her child in with the money could be interpreted as 'we think another child may have lost it'. Why would you send your child into school with money when it isn't for a specific purpose. She could have just told the teacher about finding it. It would have been a minor miracle of it wasn't lost during the day anyway.

As said previously, I would have kept it until home time.

I honestly think you should chalk it up to experience.

Winebottle · 13/10/2017 21:23

The teacher is in the wrong. If it is not her money to keep then it is not her money to spend it is not her money to give away either to charity or anyone else. You can say it would be nice to give it to charity seen as it was acquired through someone else's loss but like all giving to charity, it is optional.

You should hand in anything else but not cash because it is fungible. If you are picking it up, you keep it. Personally, I walk on by.

Winebottle · 13/10/2017 21:25

But the teacher did not mean any harm so I wouldn't be confronting her over £1.

hippyhippyshake · 13/10/2017 21:33

I can't see from the op that the teacher 'demanded' she retrieve the money and 'demanded' she put it in the charity box. Or that the teacher 'snatched' the money from her. Soon it will be that the teacher wrestled her to the floor to get the flipping money off her. Confused

MiniMum97 · 13/10/2017 21:44

All this “if you find money it isn’t yours to keep” stuff is crazy. If you find cash on a path, of course you can keep it. It’s just your good luck! Obviously if it is in a wallet or purse or otherwise traceable then it should be handed in or given back to the owner. If you choose to give found untraceable cash to charity, good for you, but it’s not compulsory!

LJdorothy · 13/10/2017 22:00

In all probability the Op's child said that she found the money on the floor/ground and the teacher presumed, perfectly reasonably, that she'd found it in school. Would you honestly want a primary teacher to tell the child "Great! Somebody must have dropped that. You should keep it!" ?? As the teacher had a class to teach she probably took the money, put it in the nearest receptacle... the charity box... and then forgot all about it. And for this non-event she has been accused on this thread of being as a thief, a gob-shite, a twat and a cow. It really doesn't surprise me that teachers are leaving the profession in droves.

BlueSapp · 13/10/2017 22:05

Even if the teacher thought it was found my n the school why would she not have kept it incase it was another child’s, why would she put it in a charity box !

Sallystyle · 13/10/2017 22:18

You are just encouraging your child to think that money she finds on the street is hers to keep when it's not.

Except it is. If I find a pound on the floor it's going to become mine. I'm not going to leave it there for someone else to take. I might put it in a charity tin if I pass one. I might not. But a £1.00 on the street without knowing the rightful owner means that £1.00 becomes mine to do what I want with.

My children understand the difference between keeping a £10 note found inside a shop and a coin or even a note found on the street with no way of finding the owner. It's basic stuff.

MN hysterics at its best. People falling all over themselves to show how morally superior they are to people who would pick up a coin Grin

gobbin · 13/10/2017 22:26

I once found a £20 note in Great Malvern. After a quick check around, there was nobody nearby, so we spent it in the pub.

Willow2017 · 13/10/2017 23:18

Lj
That doesn't even make sense.

Teacher thinks "I will keep this in case another child has lost it. I know i will put it in the sealed charity box so even if they do ask about it I can't return it. Never mind I can tell them they can go without as i did a good deed in thier stead."

"I am so morally superior it won't matter who's £1 It was."

Willow2017 · 13/10/2017 23:28

Tombstone

What do you suppose happens to all the coins on the streets and paths?
Do they just quietly ooze and dissolve causing no harm to the environment? Nope

Do they get picked up by someone not you? Yes.

Do they get swept up by the road sweepers and dumped? Yes.

Which one is the best option?

Or may be they should be picked up by children who find joy in finding a 5p piece they can put in thier piggy bank?

Leaving them lying is doing nobody any good whatsoever. A person isn't going to be combing the streets all day looking for a 5p or 20p coin. Nor would anyone be going into every shop on the syreet and saying " I think I dropped 5p today when walking up the high st. Did anyone hand it in?"

Only on mn would people think a kid picking up a coin lying on a path (with everyone else ignoring it or too busy to even notice it) was stealing.

BadLad · 13/10/2017 23:34

For the sake of a pound, I'd just let it go. You've learned not to let your daughter take money to school yet, your daughter has learned to keep her mouth shut about windfalls, which will stand her in good stead should she ever win the lottery, and you've both learned what a virtues signalling bore the teacherteacher is (and quite a few mumsnetters too).

I've sometimes found money - usually spend it on booze to help stimulate the economy.

LJdorothy · 14/10/2017 00:00

Willow, the thoughts you have put in the teacher's head certainly don't make sense, but I don't for a minute imagine that she had the time or energy to think those ridiculous thoughts or indeed anything about the matter other than than one of her pupils has said they've found money, she can't allow them to keep it, so she had better take it from them.
If the Op asks for it back I'm sure the teacher will be able to return the coin. And she isn't being a 'virtue signalling bore' either. Teachers can't allow pupils to keep money they've found on the floor/ground. We know it was on the cycle path, but it is not at all clear if the teacher did.

differentnameforthis · 14/10/2017 00:51

Tell her that she should stand up to the teacher. She's 8. What do you suggest she says that
1] changes her teachers mind
2] doesn't get her into trouble

CheerfulYank · 14/10/2017 01:13

YANBU. I'd be irritated.

It's not the teacher's decision to make whatsoever.

emmyrose2000 · 14/10/2017 02:53

Some completely stupid comments on here

The teacher was 100% wrong. She had no right to take the child's money. I would most definitely be telling her to give it back. If it has to come out of her own pocket to do so, then maybe she'll learn a lesson in not appropriating other peoples' money.

sashh · 14/10/2017 03:36

Even if it was a real 'find how on earth would we trace the owner?

Well it is technically 'theft by finding', so the teacher is right it isn't hers (teacher does not know you dropped it).

I was brought up that if you found coins you gave them to charity, is that an old fashioned idea? |The money isn't yours but you can't return it to the owner so you give it to a good cause.

At what point would you not let her keep it? £10,? £50?

TheStoic · 14/10/2017 03:38

I think anyone who leaves money on the ground, for the next person to pick up, may very well be an idiot.

KoalaD · 14/10/2017 05:34

Yeah, I really don't think that teaching an 8-year-old to 'stand up to the teacher' is the way to go.

No wonder there are so many rude, disobedient children around.

BoomBoomsCousin · 14/10/2017 06:15

The teacher was wrong to make your DD put the pound in the charity box, even if you had not dropped it on purpose. I think your 'humouring' your DD was a recipe for mix-ups really, but it isn't the same as making someone "donate", which is just not a decision for a teacher to make.

CircleofWillis · 14/10/2017 06:43

Imagine how different The book 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' would have been if his teacher had made him donate his found dollar bill.

Coconutspongexo · 14/10/2017 07:36

Well it is technically 'theft by finding', so the teacher is right it isn't hers (teacher does not know you dropped it).

It's generally acceptable that small sums of change will not be traceable. E.g. Pennies and £ coins

Also the teacher is partaking in this theft isn't she if she just threw it in a charity box?

AlecTrevelyan006 · 14/10/2017 07:52

The teacher was in the wrong. 100%.

MaisyPops · 14/10/2017 07:53

KoalaD
I agree. (I had 2 children want to challenge me recently. 1 was reasonable, there had been a mistake & mum and I had a chat. The other was out of order and had a parent who told them 'you tell miss/sir that I say... Guess which one got the resolution they wanted?)

I wouldn't have done what the teacher did but there are ways to resolve issuea without telling children to be rude and argumentative.