… to think that “Miss” and “Sir” for teachers is not equivalent?

[wallpoppy]

Just that really. Children say “miss” for female teachers of any age or seniority, but it’s “sir” for male teachers. As titles outside of school they aren’t remotely equivalent. It should Miss, mrs. or ms. surname for women and Mr. surname for men.

At my school it was always Sir or Ma’am, I thought that was better.

Miss sounds ridiculous.

The children don’t notice or care about a lot of things that are important though 😃. It is our job to point these things out to them.

I have worked in schools where it was Mrs/MS/Mr/Miss surname but never (ever) ‘miss’ or ‘sir’. I liked it.

I dislike ‘Miss’ and my older pupils know why. However, I am but one woman and I can’t fight the majority culture of the school I work in now to that extent so I am often ‘Miss’. I most hate being referred to by youngish male teachers who know fine well what my name/surname is.

Our staff discussed this recently and it was astonishingly cringeworthy. The majority of female staff (we did a poll) stated that they didn’t like Miss, but there was a huge instinctive NO to the idea of being called Ma’am. Full names only was most peoples preferred option but there was no senior staff will to impose such a culture change.

At my primary school in the 1960s, we called all our teachers Mr/Mrs/Miss X. Any new pupil who used 'Miss' or 'Sir' was firmly told by our formidable headmistress "My name is Miss X. Teachers in this school have names". At secondary school, we just used 'Miss' and 'Sir'.

More recently, my daughter trained as a teacher her last year (secondary). She was not surprised to be called 'Miss' but she was surprised to be referred to as Miss by the other teachers.

So, for example, the teachers would say to the students something like "I'm going to do X and then Miss will do Y". It wasn't just because she was a trainee. They did it to each other too. Very odd.

This did used to bother me when I first started teaching but it doesn’t really any more. ‘Sir’ and ‘Miss’ are very much the norm in most secondary schools if students don’t know the teacher’s name and adults will use them towards each other in front of students. In my experience when using titles students rarely pronounce the difference between Miss / Mrs / Ms and it all comes out as ‘Miss’ anyway. They do check the preferred title when writing our name, which I appreciate.

There are schools which use ‘ma’am’ but it just ends up sounding like ‘mum / mam’.

Madam would be a weird alternative

It would if you pronounced it exactly how it is spelt. If you drop the D, as is normal in common parlance, it doesn’t sound so weird.

I prefer miss to madam. Still feels weird when teachers use it to each other though.

DD’s school used ‘madam’. It seemed a little odd to me but had no connotations to her, so she was fine with it. No idea how the teachers felt.

Many years ago I was a cadet instructor so was ‘ma’am’ at age 16, that was fun 😂 Pronounced with a long aa sound though, not to rhyme with jam - thought I was only the Queen who preferred that?

So, for example, the teachers would say to the students something like "I'm going to do X and then Miss will do Y". It wasn't just because she was a trainee. They did it to each other too. Very odd.

Yes, we do do this I’m afraid. Sorry.

I sort of know what you mean, but I also think that within the very specific context of a school these terms make sense as (largely) equivalent honorifics. A child or teenager using ‘Miss’ to an adult teacher is totally different context to the use of Miss when addressing a single woman.

Whenever I tell my DD about schools in Britain she is amazed, and laughs, and thanks god she doesn't have to go to school there. This is another one of those things, calling teachers Sir or Miss, or Mr. X and Miss/Mrs Y. At her school they call all staff by their first names, or nicknames, or just 'ope' which is a shortened form of the word for teacher. There's no lack of respect, titles don't show respect, they're just words, behaviour and attitude show respect.

@YippieKayakOtherBuckets Interesting. I wonder how widespread it is. Do you know why, or is it just something that everyone has always done?

Sir and Madam and my secondary school. And for infant / juniors it was Mrs / Miss / Mr [surname] so Mrs Smith, etc.

DSis now lives in Denmark and at the school she works in it is normal to refer to all teachers by their first names. I quite like this idea as it makes the staff seem more approachable.

It’s very widespread and pretty normal. We will always address each other as Mr Smith / Dr Jones in front of students to model the correct form of address to them but in the flow of teaching we will often use ‘Miss’ or ‘Sir’ as shorthand. No offence is meant and I hope your DD didn’t take any. She’ll be very used to it by Christmas!

I'd use "Teacher". I dislike Sir, Miss, Ma'am

I dislike it. Id prefer they use the teachers first names.

I hate that women are defined by marital status in general life, so think it is a bigger problem than just schools. I changed to Ms a few years ago, even though I hate the sound and it's essentially used these days to mean divorced. I believe it originated from Mistress. Mistress might be fun to start using!

In my experience when using titles students rarely pronounce the difference between Miss / Mrs / Ms and it all comes out as ‘Miss’ anyway. They do check the preferred title when writing our name, which I appreciate.

Yes, this is my experience too. Something else I’ve noticed since we started regularly using email and Teams to communicate with students is that they will address us as ‘Dear Miss’ as if they were speaking in real life but they will remember if our preferred title is Mrs or Ms and spell it accordingly, even though they don’t pronounce the difference.

@YippieKayakOtherBuckets Thanks. Daughter wasn't offended at all, she just thought it was odd as she hadn't come across it before.

She starts her first job as an ECT on Monday in a different school so it will be interesting to see if there do it there too!

Me too. Even when I was a (secondary) headteacher, and they knew I was Mrs Eadie, they called me 'Miss' for short. I just viewed it as a school title and not representative of anything in particular.

Well I think it would be miss and master. But 'yes master' doesn't sound right somehow😬

Sir and Ma'am would be right and is used in some schools

As a former teacher, I hated being called "Miss". It is not my name. My name is "Mrs Moose". It was written on the board in front of the class.
I knew every child's name and used them, so they have no reason not to know their teacher's name. It's not difficult and I found "Miss" to be often whiny and disrespectful.

Teachers referring to each other as sir or miss is just the equivalent of parents referring to each other as mum and dad to their children.

So 'I'm going into town, why don't you ask Dad if you can stay with him'.

Also convenient if you have not remembered your colleague's surname

The students would never have meant any disrespect by it. They were addressing you as per the statue quo.

Don't look for offence where there was none!

Sir commands respect. Miss does nothing of the sort.

This.
Should be either Sir and Ma'am or Miss and Mister.