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

Of course I learn their bloody names. Doesn't mean I don't mix them up sometimes. I also don't waste time playing games with them to learn names. I put them in a seating plan and use it.

Every lesson for the first few weeks would waste 280 minutes of lesson time in just my subject over 7 weeks. But you carry on.

@Gulabjamoon You've just called @Chienloup extremely incompetent. Well done.

you what, @LonginesPrime?

I've made it very clear that my view is that the teacher is behaving, unconsciously or not, in a racist manner.

I was replying to @DomDoesWotHeWants who thinks it's cool

What are you even on about @Hercwasonaroll.

"If you need to spend 10 minutes EVERY lesson to learn children’s names then you just be a extraordinarily incompetent teacher"

It's not me that needs 10 minutes per lesson.

I can imagine this is true. I took DS to his induction day for primary last week. The teachers immediately knew and remembered his name (he was the only white child in the group), but constantly called the Asian kids by each other’s names.

But in fairness, I am awful with men’s names, and think all young white men with dark hair look interchangeable at work! Mind you, they all dress similar

TBH getting names muddled up ,especially if the names are unusual is really not anything to get worked up about. I get my own childrens names wrong daily . My grandchild and little doggie both get called each other’s names ...these mistakes are perfectly normal especially as one gets older . Really don’t worry.

@Hercwasonaroll

"If you need to spend 10 minutes EVERY lesson to learn children’s names then you just be a extraordinarily incompetent teacher"

It's not me that needs 10 minutes per lesson.

You have serious issues with this don't you? I did not say EVERY lesson, you did. Gulabjamon was referring to your belief that it would take 10 minutes out of EVERY lesson.

People find it far more difficult to distinguish between people of races other than their own, it would be likely to also happen with a BAME teacher and two whites girls, this has been scientifically proven.

The teacher clearly isn't doing it on purpose, YABU.

Frlrlrubert
My experience is similar to yours. I have photos on my seating plan, write down preferred shortenings or situations where a child goes by a different name (eg Mohammed is their first name but they actually go by their middle name or have a Chinese name on the register but have a preferred Anglicised name), write down any phonetic spellings but still get a mental block in the first term with a few quieter white students.

Apologies @Ihatemyseleffordoingthis - I misread your post and thought you said it also happens with the white kids.

10 minutes out of the first few weeks even at one lesson a week is 70 minutes. Why are you not using your own time to learn the names? I really wouldn't find that acceptable.

I am a secondary teacher.
In my opinion- it is up to the teacher to ensure that children are called by the correct name- that's part of the job. I have 4 boys called James in one class and often confuse them [ they think it's funny]; but it's completely unacceptable to confuse BAME; it's nor funny or acceptable and as privileged whites, we need to take extra care that this doesn't happen!

I've done this and it is mortifying and yes I do it more with bame kids who look alike I find Asian kids from same family cousin group get muddled all the time

But I also say the wrong name to my kids and they are 10 years apart one is a baby and different sexes my Nan would go through several names before getting yo mine

People find it far more difficult to distinguish between people of races other than their own, it would be likely to also happen with a BAME teacher and two whites girls, this has been scientifically proven

This sums it up. Yes the teacher should make an extra effort. But even with the best will you can get confused, some people are not good with face recognition or name/face association even if they have the same race (I'm one of them!).

OFFREDOFFSTUART
Also a teacher, it's not good to be mixing anyone's names up, but it does happen. I'm a bit conflicted over whether we should have a hierarchy of 'childen it's ok to make a mistake with and children it's not'. Just apologise if a mistake is made and aim to do better next time.

@Hercwasonaroll

10 minutes out of the first few weeks even at one lesson a week is 70 minutes. Why are you not using your own time to learn the names? I really wouldn't find that acceptable.

I don't know why you have taken my post so personally. It wasn't aimed at an individual, but immediately @-ed me and said you wouldn't want me teaching in your school! The feeling is mutual.

Luckily when I was teaching my relationships and results spoke for themselves, I don't need a random (probably not even a teacher) on the internet to tell me personally what is or isn't acceptable.

You do you, I pity the pupils whose names you don't do the courtesy of getting right.
The OP is clear that this isn't a one-time "mistake" but an ongoing issue such the teacher should address.

Report to the School Head.

For what? Mixing up 2 kids when the teacher might have 200+ kids a week? Ridiculous. I might see almost that many in a day-32 per class, 6 lessons a day.

For me, it’s always white girls and boys, blond girls with glasses, 2 blond boys in Year 7 this year. Then I had 2 Toms, 2 Olivers, 2 Charlies all in one group this year. 3 of one name in another class, all similar achievement/behaviour, so it was John B, John J etc. I learn names within 2 weeks, but until I know them, I have nameplates up. I might still accidentally call Tom by Charlie’s name, just like a friend who has 5 dc and goes through all names before getting to mine!

I suppose it would be one thing if it happened early on/in a school with huge classes it in general I would find not knowing any child’s name unacceptable. Mind you I can barely tell the white kids in my son’s class apart. They all seem to be extremely Saxon looking and basically interchangeable. I’m sure there are differences but when you’re only looking at hair/eye colour to identify the child you’re not getting anywhere, the whole lot of them are blond and blueish eyed.

When I had KS3 only time tables with one hour per class per week, that was hundreds of names, 150 alone on a 5 period day. By the time you add in things like INSET, time off timetable, pupil absence, I'd probably spend less than 35 hours with an individual across the year. That's less than a primary teacher spends with a class in a fortnight.

It's very easy to develop all kinds of mental block. Sometimes it's association that x and y always hang around together or they remind you of someone else. Early errors can stick and cause uncertainty. Names are often repeated. There was the day I taught Louis, Louis and Louis on the same day. I knew the order of pronounciation, but sometimes having used the other version 20 mins earlier, errors slip in. The hardest children to learn are the very quiet, get on with it types, often girls with similar long hair worn the same way with very similarly styled friends. They're a great asset to their class but don't attract much attention or have obvious distinguishing features.

As someone who jumbles up my own two similar looking offspring, it's not that surprising when in the 4th lesson of the day, the wrong name slips out, and I'm more likely to do it with a child of the ethnic majority in the room than a minority.

My black maths teacher constantly called me and another girl each others names, he always said "I'm sorry but you're practically twins!". We were both blonde but that was it. Different eye colour, hair cut, hair style, skin tone, height and she had very obvious freckles. We honestly looked nothing like each other! I never thought of him as bad or racist but maybe he was!

As a white woman, I cannot tell Amy Adams and Isla Fisher apart. They are honestly just one person to me.

@maggiethecat Will you talk to the teachers who are mixing up your daughter's name with someone else? I think it would be important to have a conversation, particularly if it affects your dds self-esteem. It may be a silly oversight, but it does need to be resolved, and as a wider school approach perhaps, depending on whether other students have a similar issue. That would be constructive and possibly make a positive difference to student experience, BAME or not.

I once had a team of one Nigerian, one Chinese person; one had an anglicised name, the other had an unusual, hard to work out pronunciation from the spelling name. (But I learned it!)

Both lovely, kind people - but neither made any effort to learn how to pronounce the Irish name of a woman working in another team (never progressed beyond Knee-am-her for Niamh), however frequently I reminded them.