To think suspending the teacher was extreme?

[LouBlue1507]

A maths teacher has been suspended, probably going to be sacked for accidently calling a trans child a girl whilst referring 'well done girls' to a small group of girls. He apologised for his mistake, but weeks later the parents complained.

I don't think he's helped himself by going to the press and 'This Morning' but for a class of pupils to lose a good teacher over this?

It's obvious that the majority of teachers need training on transgender, gender fluid etc. It's not fair that they are thrown in the deep end with no training what so ever. I bet most don't even know what half of it even means!

No, you can't change sex, that is a fact. You can have cosmetic surgery to make you appear as the other sex.

He should have kept his views to himself and it sounds as though he has repeatedly brought them into the classroom. He's shown poor judgement and lack of professionalism in bringing them to the public arena and I think that should be enough to justify his dismissal.

Sex and gender are two very different things though. Sex is your chromosomes, gender is how you feel and what society expects.

What else is accepted as fact that schools can't mention?

Really?

You couldn't have kept this for when the 'trans debate' didn't have a few threads already on the first page of AIBU?

I wouldn't be a teacher for 1 million pound a week.

There’s more to this than meets the eye. He’s a fundamentalist Christian and, once you’ve taken that into account, there’s no way it was accidental.

He should be sacked.

As a pastor, you would think he had heard of Matthew 7 1-13,
"Judge not and you will not be judged".

He sounds like a total knob and a bully.

However do we have to start throwing derogatory comments like "God Botherer" around? There are billions of people out there who have a faith and whilst some use this as an excuse to bully others, the vast majority are actually sensible ordinary people.

Why cant we just all live and let live and work together for tolerance.

Would people really not tell a child happy birthday because their parents said they don't celebrate? That makes me really sad - I know a few people raised as JWs who felt the banning of Christmas and birthdays was a way of ostracising them from the class.

Interesting thread. Two belief systems coming smack up against each other. Neither of which are based on science or fact.

Should the adult cede to the child’s belief system, or the other way round?

What concerns me, yet again, is that this will be exploited.

Are children, who see quite how easy it is to make an issue out of pronouns, going to run with it?

Because when another five kids demand that teachers use their preferred pronouns, it’s going to get more difficult, particularly if those pronouns are all different.

And as there are 76 different genders and you can make pronouns up as you go along, I’m not surprised this teacher has raised the issue of inadequate briefing materials.

No YANBU

avoidance of using gendered pronouns contravenes the school’s code of conduct with regard to demonstrating an awareness of sexual and cultural diversity of students and use of insensitive comments towards young people”

More than this particular teacher and child, I am more concerned by this statement by the school.

It is making not doing something a thought crime against policy.

You should not be able to punish someone for choosing not to do something.

In this case not using the chosen pronouns for a particular child and replacing the pronoun with their new name should be perfectly acceptable behaviour.

The law is all based on punishing people for what they did or planned to do, not on what they didn't !

This newspeak is getting worse week on week.

Plus in no other area of law compels us to lie, except this recently in these new trans policies. Then we are forced to lie, else we are punished. Very worrying.

I understood the exact opposite from what she understands (though I don't know which of us is right) - that the church is saying boys can wear tiaras and dresses just fine, it's no biggie. Which is exactly the opposite of saying they are trans, whereas the likes of Mermaids et al considers tiaras and dresses as evidence a boy is a girl.

FWIW I'm another who believes that strong personal beliefs, religious or otherwise, should be left at the classroom door

However I can't help wondering if there's an element of this particular teacher being used as a whipping boy in pursuit of an agenda. The whole trans debate contains a lot of nuance, but it would be only too easy for those attracted to the concept of thoughtcrime to treat an alleged fundamentalist - and a Christian at that - as some sort of soft target

There's also the issue of double standards in schools' tolerance of some religious agendas and not others, but that's probably another thread

In this case not using the chosen pronouns for a particular child and replacing the pronoun with their new name should be perfectly acceptable behaviour.

It depends on how it's done. If he's doing it in a way that emphasises that he's actively doing it for that specific pupil and he's previously made his opinion on gender clear, it becomes subtle bullying.

Whilst I agree that bullying can be subtle. I’m not sure how you can draw a conclusion from what he has said.

And he could equally feel bullied by his school, for not respecting his belief system.

I don’t think anyone accepts that a teacher should be mean to a child. But this isn’t really about individuals. It’s about an ideology.

It’s about being condemned for not lying. And although it conflicted with his personal belief system, if you leave that side of it out, it also conflicts with science and biology.

I agree Puzzledandpissedoff that his religion might be being used to paper over the fact that, which ever way you cut it up, he is being forced to lie.

Argh, threadfail, sorry people.

More to the point he is being punished because he is not willing to lie !

I think the trans debate or ideology is a red herring here mostly. He's lost his job because he has repeatedly shown he can't put his pupils and their education before his religious beliefs. And who knows what else is not being reported because it doesn't titillate as much and doesn't cause as much debate. I'd be interested to know how much his colleagues have had to put up with as well.

The Mail reports that the main concern of the parents was that Sutcliffe was picking on their son, and that they would not have lodged a complaint over one incident of misgendering.
The parents also complained that Sutcliffe had given a disproportionate number of detentions to the boy for bad behaviour.

Obviously sometimes kids will say a teacher is picking on them when really the teacher is just picking them up on bad behaviour. It's possible though that in this case the school has decided the parents are right that he was picking on him. Plus they may have had concerns about how he was pushing his religious beliefs

More to the point he is being punished because he is not willing to lie !

Yes, I agree. It’s a subtle difference, but it’s important.

You can’t opt out. You have to actively profess your allegiance to a belief you don’t uphold.

And then you have Scottish guidelines that say boys can sleep in the same dorm as girls and parents don’t need to know, and children can transition in school, without their parents knowledge or permission.

Add that on to being suspended for refusing to lie, and it is an issue that goes way, way beyond being kind.

The school looked into the parents thoughts of their child was being picked on and they concluded that the teacher was fair in that respect.

He also used the child's boy name respectively when speaking to and about the child.

The only thing he would not do is lie and use the wrong pronouns. He promised to continue using the new name instead.

But that was not enough for the school policy, he has to lie or they will punish him !