To think that teachers should be able to distinguish BAME students by name?

[maggiethecat]

I have 2 DDs at different secondary schools and we have recently been having animated table discussions arising from the BLM protests. Both girls separately experienced teachers repeatedly confusing their names with the handful of other BAME students in the class. 13 yo DD cannot understand why she is repeatedly confused with another BAME girl who is much taller than her and unlike DD wears glasses. Apparently the offending teachers do not have this memory deficit with white students in the class

A couple of points to note from me...
I confuse the names of my 3 children all the time. 2 boys and 1 girl and eventually I get the right one.
It is well known that outside your own race folks find it difficult to distinguish between individuals which is why wrong identification of black males committing crimes has been such an issue over the years especially in the US. It's not racist - it's a biological fact.

OP, YABU for the title of your thread, which should read:

AIBU to think that the teachers at my DCSs schools should be able to distinguish BAME students by name?

No, because all teachers should be able to do it. All people should be able to do it. It just happens that some teachers at the OP's DDs' school can't and I suspect they are not alone.

I do mix up actual people. Soneone will come up to me in the street and start a conversation, maybe its the paretn of someone I used to teach, or a distant relative and I will have no idea who they are.

If there are just a few BAME students in the class then the teachers do need to do better. I speak as someone who used to be a teacher - they need to make MORE effort because of historical racism and unconscious bias. Saying 'oh it happens to everyone, white kids too' is not acceptable in this context. Teachers should know this. YANBU.

Racism, alive and well on Mumsnet.

Not meaning to trivialise this but my eldest daughter called who is called for eg. Sandra has been called Sarah by one of her subject teachers for the whole 5 years she’s been at her school. She’s given up trying to correct him and just goes with it now, some of her teachers are just a little eccentric

Your DD has accepted that she's so unimportant to her male teacher that she's taken on a new identity in his classroom for the past five years to make his life easier??

Just because your DD is suffering appalling and damaging marginalisation, why does that mean other children should suck it up and suffer too?

My ds is one of very few white children in his school. In year 7 several teachers got confused between him and another white boy in his class. I can see why - there were only 4 white kids in the class and the other two looked quite different (glasses/ginger hair) whilst him and this other boy were average looking white boys with mousy hair and similar names. In a class of BAME children it was obvious that they would be associated with each other and mixed up.

I think this is similar to the OP’s situation. Is it racist? I’m not sure. For what it’s worth, ds used to complain of teachers being racist/preferring the Asian boys/always picking on him and this other boy. I’m sure a big part of it was that neither of them were particularly well behaved. I can also see that they stood out in the way that BAME children would in a majority white school. It made them an easy target. I’m not saying my son has experienced the full extent of what it’s like to be BAME in this country but it’s given us a glimpse into it.

@ittooshallpass

My Irish name has been mispronounced, changed to something else or even swapped for a common English boys name throughout my school days and beyond. I have even been told I'm pronouncing it incorrectly. I politely pointed out that as it is my name I do know how to pronounce it.

It is annoying, and despite correcting lots of people my name is more often than not pronounced incorrectly.

I was also mixed up with another girl at school who had similar Irish colouring.

I don't think it's necessarily a BAME issue. I think it's anyone without an English name.

I think that there is something in this viewpoint about whether or not it is an non-English origin name.

My name is Welsh and I live in England. My name is constantly mispronounced, despite it being only two syllables. I have corrected people far more frequently than I am comfortable with. Friends have corrected people when I haven't been there. One work collegaue, who came into my office weekly for my input for a few years, who was being corrected in my absence, said "I don't think she really mids one way or the other, does she?'.

I have also frequently, in the workplace, been mixed up with someone else who is Welsh, but works in a different Division and is 15 years older than me.

That said, I see the unconscious bias point towards BAME people and students and I definitely think it exists.

It is because of race. I don't think the intention is racist. I think there are many reasons it happens, as already mentioned-difficulty distinguishing features of 'other' races vs own, unfamiliarity with names so no associations to help make the connections in memory etc.. but the impact in this scenario between teacher and pupil is racist, because it puts BAME pupils at a disadvantage, feeling unimportant, not being credited for their behaviour, being unfairly blamed etc etc. In other situations you could probably say it's just unconscious bias and there may not be any specific negative consequences. But here there are.

@EnthusiasmIsDisturbed where did I say that BAME people or you can’t have your opinions or views taken at face value?

Can you explain to me why my husband would be a racist either subconsciously or consciously if our two neighbours whose names he continuously for years muddles up (despite me constantly correcting him!!!) happened to be BAME but as they are white it’s a simple (albeit stupid) confusion he has?

@crazycrofter you mean the teachers might be playing a game of guess who, becuase they don't have capacity to learn everyones name as so many people go through their classes each year?

so you go with the big stuff first.

• is it a boy? Yes
• is it one of those white boys? Yes
• ginger? No
• oh then its todd or ted or something like that? I'll toss a coin.

I mean in such a situation race is coming into it as a definiting trait for categorising, but I think that would be ok?

I think it is harder with non traditional names and you can sometimes muddle up students who look similar or look like another student you have come across before whatever their ethnicity

Full disclosure: I have no experience of racism so I can't comment on your children's experience, but just wanted to say that if it's any consolation OP when I was at school I was CONSTANTLY called the wrong name by multiple different teachers, even ones I got on well with. For some reason there were me and two other girls where the teachers mixed up our names with the other two all the time, so it was pot luck as to whether the three of us ever got called by our right name.

Given we were not in a large school and we were in different years, had different hair colours/styles and skin tones, it always baffled us as to why they mixed the three of us up when they seemed to manage perfectly fine with the rest of the school.

Maybe some teachers aren't great with names or 'merge' students together who have similar personalities, who knows

I’m not saying my son has experienced the full extent of what it’s like to be BAME in this country but it’s given us a glimpse into it.

It really hasn't. Not even close.

A member of the dominant class becoming a minority in a particular setting (classroom, social group, event, etc) doesn't provide even a glimpse of what it's like to live as part of an oppressed class.

You will never know what it's like and suggesting you do trivialises the very real struggles of the oppressed class.

The Pulp song Common People explains why.

My own mum does it as I do at times with my own dds and myself

Are there not more important things to worry about at the moment

I am white so haven’t experienced racism really so I can’t say if this is racist or not
However, at Primary DD was one of 3 tall blondes that were BFFs and despite knowing the girls for years their Y6 teacher still mixed them up occasionally
Now she’s in Y10 and her friendship group consists of 4 tall blondes and they do get called by each others names sometimes (usually quickly corrected). Her and her BFF seem interchangeable to most people, despite them looking quite different apart from the long blonde hair and school uniform

@BubblyBarbara

If the speaker of the house can remember 600 MPs names and constituencies I'm sure a teacher can remember a class or two

He has a seating plan .

I know all my pupils’ names (primary, so only 1 class), just as well as I know my own DC names.
Sometimes the wrong name comes out of my mouth, whether at home with my family or in the classroom. I know as soon as it’s been said that it’s wrong. It will usually be when I was doing something else and have to speak unexpectedly/ hurriedly.
If that’s what’s happening then it doesn’t mean the teachers don’t know their names, it’s just that the right name didn’t come to hand at the right time.
If the teacher is genuinely confused about who is who - eg, not handing work to the right pupil, talking about another pupil at parents’ eve for example, then YANBU.

You will never know what it's like and suggesting you do trivialises the very real struggles of the oppressed class

and this is why no matter what people do it's never good enough ....you just can't win .

YANBU...but my quiet son is white and his teacher mixes him up all the time. Wrong first name, wrong surname - first term he wrote in his report he was too chatty with the boys next to him...my son pointed out to me he sat in the corner next to a girl. I have always thought it was because he was quiet.

I am white and got the gcse results of an other girl same surname sent out to me and I got hers. She failed I got shouted at untill we realised what had happened

@BubblyBarbara

If the speaker of the house can remember 600 MPs names and constituencies I'm sure a teacher can remember a class or two

The Speaker doesn't have a regular turnover of one fifth of the MPs every twelve months, plus a 'turbulence' turnover of up to 20% in some school populations. He also uses a seating plan!

Everybody gets names mixed up, that much is clear. Some admit it's an unconscious race thing, some say it's deliberate, some disagree. OP asked for opinions. What do you think you/your daughter's will do OP?

I don't know whether this is racist or not. It may be subconsciously racist, although I'm sure that the teacher would be mortified if someone pointed it out.

It can't feel good though. When I started working as a newish graduate, a bunch of the middle aged senior guys would call me and another young woman by each other's names (we weren't that similar, both blonde and had names ending in "a"). I could understand it if they had only met us once or twice but after a while it drove me insane. It got to the point where one of them would stand behind me yelling "Sandra! SANDRA!" and I would turn around and say "I'm Belinda" (both names have been changed). One other guy would just come up and say things like "You look like a bright young girl! Can you find out who works on [this client]?"

Once someone has done some work with you or put effort in (and I had, I'd really worked hard on these guys' projects), it's important to remember their name.

The 'it's not racist' posts are the exact reason why nothing ever bloody changes.

It is unconscious bias at play. So saying it IS racist is not an accusation, but it is a fact.

We all use heuristics every day, mental shortcuts to avoid overloading the brain. White people have a heuristic for black people so mix up people who look very different but with black skin.