Would you speak to the teacher?

[Ispini]

I don’t know if I’m overreacting or not but I am quite miffed by this. The other day my DD (secondary age)was in English class and they were doing some Irish poetry. The teacher spent the first ten minutes speaking in a ‘leprechaun’ (as she described it) Irish accent. For the rest of the day the kids kept saying stupid things like ‘top of the morning to ya’ etc. She came home and asked me what that meant! I have to say I was irritated and feel that if it was poetry from another country he would not have done this. My DD is well travelled and seemed quite baffled as she has never encountered something like this before. FWIW I am a teacher and wouldn’t dream of doing this. WWYD?

Oh fuck balls, another example of why I'm so glad to be out of the profession in 18 days and counting!!!

Parents are mental!

🤦🏻‍♀️

only this one hasn't, Qwerty - some agree with the OP, some don't. And sometimes teachers get it wrong, and sometimes they don't.

Thank you to those of you who made constructive comments.

Perhaps you could give more specific feedback on the best and worst comments. I'm sure people are keen to feel they've met your expectations.

Believe me I’ve been criticized for much less!

Oh, well. Fair enough then. That's definitely a good reason.

Donquiot my lessons are very entertaining thank u I just don’t have to resort to imitating my students accents to make them so.

I'm sure that's true. I bet you have a great sense of humour. But not humour which could ever be construed as tactless if heard second hand, obviously- that would be awful.

I agree with you Weepingwillow.

I’m Irish and I’m not offended. I also understand what you mean by a leprechaun accent I.e. that fake Irish lilt you hear on American tv shows. To be honest it’s no worse than someone trying a cockney accent or a really bad French accent. I really think everyone should lighten up sometimes, there are much bigger issues in the world to get worked up about, shootings in Christchurch, kids getting crushed to death at a disco, Brexit to name a few

I’m Irish and if it happened the way I picture it I am offended. One person being or not being offended doesn’t really tell us much 🤷‍♀️

I wonder if the teacher was trying to get the class's attention and somehow make the lesson sound fun and interesting? A sort of 'hook'?

So rather than meaning to insult anyone, I think it was more likely have been meant as a way to motivate them. Sounds more fun than the school I went to!

Has anyone mentioned snowflakes yet?

A thread for the terminally offended. My mum is Irish. My DD regularly puts on a very good Irish accent when she is ribbing my mum about something. YABU and a bit ridiculous if you are considering 'speaking to the teacher'

This always makes me

We all perfected some awful Irish accents when we were at school as one of our teachers was an Irish nun who used to love screeching threats of eternal hellfire and damnation at any "bold bold girls" she encountered. Teenagers being teenage twits - and we did similar to any other teachers with mimickable characteristics - we were fairly non discriminatory in our twittery.

Some text does need to be read in an approximation of the dialect or accent it's been written in really to get the proper sense of it though. I have a fairly toned down (I've lived away from the area for decades - the accent comes and goes if I go back home to visit relatives but I'm generally fairly well spoken with just a slight undertone of it left) Wearside accent and I got left a supply lesson on the Lambton Worm once - and the kids were left with the folk song as part of the lesson plan and it was making no ruddy sense to most of them whatsoever (they were fucking lucky they managed to land a supply from the relevant part of the UK the tale originated from to be honest!)... so I dropped into my full blown accent and it made it a heck of a lot more clear for them to be able to access the text. Yes, I had a couple of the wise guys in the class giving it the whole "why aye man" routine for about half an hour afterwards but it was dealt with and fine and I think a fairly sensible professional judgement call to deal with the text in that manner.

A lot depends on the context. Talking to the teacher to get the context of what's gone on and advise her of the kids being daft with it for the rest of the day = fine... going in all guns blazing only knowing half the story = not fine (as is usual on MN teacher related threads).

Oh ffs really?!
Thank god I never went into teaching because frankly, anyone offended by this is nutty

😂😂😂

I'd tell my daughter that some people are twats and she'd better get used to it.

I have to say I read this out to my Irish husband and half Irish children and they laughed and said the teacher sounded fun.

I think it's ridiculous to find it offensive, and I am Irish. A little too silly perhaps for your sophisticated, well travelled DD, but the rest of the class seemed to enjoy it. Forget about it and move on.

I'm an English teacher and back in the days before YouTube I would always be a bit uncomfortable 'doing the accents' but you can't not with certain poets; it's integral to the poem.

Now, thanks to the wonders of technology, if I want them to hear a Maya Angelou poem I let Maya Angelou do it. They listen to her more than me anyway

Either way, I wouldn't have done 10 minutes of a lesson in an Irish accent, no, never.

And I'm fun too OP!

Hahaha you nut job. Calm down now.

@InnerCircle yer a quare wen...tha chip on yer shoulder is mighty altogether 🤣

My husband and daughters are Irish descent. They would find it funny and probably copy the accent.
I am part Scottish and would not be offended if people did a Scottish accent, especially when reading something Scottish.
I was on a pgce course recently. Walked out just before qualifying. Worst fucking job in the world. And I have worked ‘in the proper world’.

The way you describe it doesn’t sound fantastic, and I don’t think you’re ‘teacher-bashing’.

Did the teacher or your daughter describe it as a ‘leprechaun ‘accent? If the former then I don’t think that’s ok. I really hate people putting on accents like this, and have heard enough mocking Irish accents to be wary of them.

Reading a poem phonetically is one thing, laughing at the accent itself another. Hard to know how to deal with it though, without the danger of seeming to be over-reacting.

Generally speaking, teachers (and anyone else) are better aiming for the “laughing with” category rather than the “laughing at”.