To have initially been mortified but now a bit annoyed by call from school?

[8bitgame]

I've named changed for this as it will be outing.

DS is 9. He is home schooling with lessons over Zoom.

This morning he had connection issues with Zoom - getting kicked out, camera freezing etc. I had to sign him back in a few times and he showed me that the video feed of his teacher kept freezing up and going very blocky. He commented that she looked like an 8 bit game - as in an old computer game where the graphics were pixel blocks.

About 30 minutes after his morning Zoom finished I get a call from the Head Teacher at the school. She is far from happy and it transpires that unbeknown to me DS had repeated his comment in the class discussion chat channel. He was saying he was having connection problems and then wrote "Miss X looks like an 8 bit game".

The teacher and then the Head have read this as him saying that Miss X looks like and 8 out of 10 and looks "a bit game".

I was mortified and explained this is of course not what he meant and that he was referring to the connection problems and the video feed being blocky and pixelated - like the graphics on an 8 bit game. Head was slightly mollified but still very stern and angry and I got a bit of a telling off. I apologised profusely and then had a chat with DS about not commenting on people's appearance and only using the group chat for stuff about work.

But now I've reflected I feel a bit put out as he hadn't really done anything wrong, he was commenting about his connection issues which were preventing him seeing the lesson and he's bloody 9 years old so who would read that in the way the school did??

AIBU to think it's a bit of a strange way to read that in that way and once they had the explanation maybe the tone could have changed a bit as he really hasn't done anything wrong?

I appreciate he could have found a better way to explain the connection issues and they might not be au fait with retro gaming but the only comms channel open to him was the chat feed he used and he's 9 so not always the best at explaining things.

When I told the Head he was having connection issues as were a lot of the class she said she didn't believe anyone else was (implying he was messing about and didn't have problems) WIBU to send a screenshot of the class discussion where several children were saying it had frozen and / or they had been kicked out and AIBU to think they've jumped to a bit of a conclusion here and gone a bit OTT especially by not backing down or changing the tone once it had been explained?

It feels like he's in a lot of trouble for something that is largely a misunderstanding on their part.

But actually, anyone who understands children knows they sometimes use language that is beyond their developmental level. They might say “shagging” before they know what that is, or similar.

I agree.
Unless OP's DS has form for this type of language (some at that age do unfortunately but it's rare) then I highly doubt he was meaning anything sexual or offensive by it. He was simply saying what he thought and not even in a rude way.
That's what kids do. Imagine going on with a bunch of 4/5-year-olds they'll tell you straight that you have bags under your eyes or looking ill because they just say what they think but they're not being purposely rude.

@SpiderinaWingMirror

Utterly ridiculous. Not quite the same thing but DD2 was punished at 5 For commenting to another child that the teacher had brown teeth. Apparently she made the teacher cry...... She was kept in at playtime for 2 days which is how I found out. Clearly there is a conversation to be had about kindness. But punishing a 5 year old? Dd is 22 now and still says "but her teeth WERE brown!".

And I completely agree with your daughter, she was stating a fact in her mind, maybe slightly rude, but still a fact nonetheless 😂

It was not about her appearance. Good lord. I don't know if people are being deliberately obtuse, or just Doing an AIBU where the OP is wrong at all costs.

• Unless OP's DS has form for this type of language (some at that age do unfortunately but it's rare) then I highly doubt he was meaning anything sexual or offensive by it. He was simply saying what he thought and not even in a rude way. That's what kids do. Imagine going on with a bunch of 4/5-year-olds they'll tell you straight that you have bags under your eyes or looking ill because they just say what they think but they're not being purposely rude.*

I know. I doubt he thought he was being rude. But he’s 9 so it’s time to tell him. The chat is for questions about the work or talking to the teacher. Not about the teacher, and not about how the teacher looks. As the OP said in the first post, she has told him, so she accepts it was inappropriate.

What’s funny is that there are multiple grown adults here pretending they don’t know that “Miss X looks like a...” isn’t a comment about how Miss X looks.
Good job you pointed that out! My colleague’s kids were messing with the Zoom settings and turned on a filter. So I said to the meeting, sorry but Barry looks like a pineapple? Now I’m thinking I should really call Barry to apologise because he probably believes I was referring to his personal resemblance to a fruit and not the appearance of the camera. 🙄

So I said to the meeting, sorry but Barry looks like a pineapple? Now I’m thinking I should really call Barry to apologise because he probably believes I was referring to his personal resemblance to a fruit and not the appearance of the camera. 🙄

Did you, aye?

Saying she looked like an 8 bit game is like saying it's like moving old style aerials on a TV screen to get a good picture. It's distorted. Maybe the correct phrase he should have used was the screen looked like an 8 bit game and not the teacher, however he is 9. He was basically saying she looked similar to a Minecraft character.

It would probably annoy me tbh. I’d end up sending a message to the head saying on reflection I don’t think my DS did anything wrong and that they totally overreacted. They should have simply asked what the comment meant before jumping to conclusions.

I don’t think it’s an issue kids messaging each other, they have had a bloody shit year and they would chat and interact with each other in class so asking them to sit quiet like robots and not communicate with each other is totally unfair to them.

@AStudyinPink

So I said to the meeting, sorry but Barry looks like a pineapple? Now I’m thinking I should really call Barry to apologise because he probably believes I was referring to his personal resemblance to a fruit and not the appearance of the camera. 🙄

Did you, aye?

Thought you were "leaving it" 3 pages ago?

Utterly ridiculous.
Not quite the same thing but DD2 was punished at 5 For commenting to another child that the teacher had brown teeth. Apparently she made the teacher cry......
She was kept in at playtime for 2 days which is how I found out. Clearly there is a conversation to be had about kindness. But punishing a 5 year old?
Dd is 22 now and still says "but her teeth WERE brown!".

This has just stirred up a memory for me. I was in year 3, and a girl in my class tapped me on the shoulder in the playground at school, opened her mouth and said 'look at this', pointing at a big brown gum where she'd had a tooth removed the previous day. I said 'that's disgusting go away!' and the girl cried and her mum took her home. I was kept in at break.
No mention of the fact she'd shoved it in my face without me asking. I was called 'terribly rude'.

hammeringinmyhead

So did I but things change.

Not your opinion apparently given you've stated it over and over again.

How on earth was he commenting on her personal appearance - he referred to her being pixilated as the connection was poor. Good grief.

Fgs. YANBU OP. I'm a teacher and am married to a deputy head teacher who's in charge of the online provision at his school. Anybody who seems to think it's inappropriate to comment on something like the screen making the teacher look a bit odd is clearly under the impression that classrooms are populated by po-faced, humourless robot teachers, and kids who arenot allowed to talk like human beings. I wouldn't have a problem with your ds' comment. Neither would my dh. In fact my dh would probably make that comment.

Consider what you would normally infer from someone saying that 'a boy inappropriately commented on the physical appearance of a female teacher'. That really is not what happened here.

And I am done.

@Greendoonan

What’s funny is that there are multiple grown adults here pretending they don’t know that “Miss X looks like a...” isn’t a comment about how Miss X looks. Good job you pointed that out! My colleague’s kids were messing with the Zoom settings and turned on a filter. So I said to the meeting, sorry but Barry looks like a pineapple? Now I’m thinking I should really call Barry to apologise because he probably believes I was referring to his personal resemblance to a fruit and not the appearance of the camera. 🙄

There's a lot of people who currently owe a lawyer an apology for suggesting he looked like a cat 😂

I didn’t know what an “8 bit game” is so I googled it. It became crystal clear to me within seconds.

I have DTs aged 9, there's no way they would understand 'a bit game', I'd also be furious to be in your position! Glad you emailed pics too. Bloody idiots

There's a lot of people who currently owe a lawyer an apology for suggesting he looked like a cat 😂

Right, and I know this a humorous example, but I watched that and saw a group of very po-faced middle age men saying - professionally and respectfully - “Perhaps you need to turn your filter off?” Nobody sent a third person message: “Bob looks like a cat.” Because third person messages in that context wouldn’t be appropriate.

And those men are peers. The 9 year old isn’t the teacher’s peer, and didn’t address the teacher - he talked about how she looked on the screen.

He’d do well to watch how those men handled a funny situation to remain professional.

@IcedLimes

If the teacher says she has sore misgivings about what your ds wrote you could ask if she's tried putting talcum powder on them like Sid James said in Carry on Camping

I like this idea!

AStudyinPink

Are you being serious? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

@TotorosFurryBehind

I think the school over reacted and handled this badly

However, it was also inappropriate for DS to make a comment about a female teacher's physical appearance. So a life of lesson for him.

He didn't make a comment about her appearance, other than describing the quality of the internet connection, using a well recognised term to describe it.

Do you think kids should learn a lesson from commenting 'Miss, you're breaking up' if it's interpreted by the teacher as an inference regarding her marriage? Or 'Miss, you've gone all blurred' if it's interpreted as the child actually thinking that the teacher has blurry edges in real life?

The lesson he needs to learn isn't not to make inappropriate comments. He already knows that. The lesson is that sometimes you say a thing and people interpret it as nothing like what you actually meant, and there's nothing you can do about it. It might be a very useful lesson, actually. I wish someone had taught me that when I was 9.

This thread is mental. I'm not entirely sure what 'a bit game' means really and I'm in my fifties. So I googled it to see if my vague interpretation of that phrase is correct. The first page is a load of stuff about 8-bit games.

To doggedly insist that OPs child was commenting personally on the teacher is just a twisted logic that I can't fathom. If he'd said "Miss is a bit fuzzy", would you insist he meant that his teacher was actually furry or something in real life? No of course not, because that would be utterly ridiculous.

I'm glad my children's teachers aren't like some of those on here who appear to have had a personality bypass.

I bet there were plenty of behind the scenes messages about the cat lawyer. Professional or not, they're only human.

*What’s funny is that there are multiple grown adults here pretending they don’t know that “Miss X looks like a...” isn’t a comment about how Miss X looks. Or it would say “The screen looks...”

And it didn’t. So...*

As many people have explained, pixelation only occurs to objects/people that are in motion. So, the whole screen wasn't pixelated just the teacher.

Good heavens, some of the comments on here are ridiculous.