To think that making fun of/ deliberately mispronouncing a foreign name is a form of racism?

[Bushmillsbabe]

My daughter told me yesterday how her teacher kept referring to Rishi Sunak as Wiff -fee Sunak when talking to her year 3 class. (Not quite sure how to type it, but Wiffey as in a word people would use for smelly, rather than like a wife or like WiFi Internet). Regardless of anyone's opinions of him, I don't feel that an appropriate example for a teacher to set. AIBU? She apparently laughed when doing it, and she doesn't have a lisp.

I agree with this email the school if it isn't picked up then it is sitting there waiting it looks like you took immediate action.

Erm, are you in the Uk? The school is surely closed?

Sorry just saw your latest message

This isn’t a safeguarding matter. It should require an internal investigation which can only be done in term time as staff would need to be available to interview the teacher.

Her teacher isn't white, she is black.
My husband worried that if we reported this a possible racism, we may be accused of being racist?

There’s alot of it about & generally I find when I correct others on my Irish name which has be mispronounced by many , from many different backgrounds & ethnicities. They become dismissive & defensive! Some even continue to say it incorrectly .. so it become tiresome to keep correcting them . It’s becomes a battle!
I even had someone from the Congo tell me I was not saying my name correctly! He didn’t even speak Irish !
I once had some one tell me they couldn’t say my name so they were going to call me Jane as it was easier to say. Hello that’s not even my name!
Rishi - isn’t even hard!

Yep, thats racist and innapropriate

That does not mean she can't be racist

It's immature. Not always racist ("The Johnson" "The orange rump") but I suspect that minority groups are more subject to it.

Politicians are fair game for racism? Hmmm.

Safeguarding - and making racist jokes about somebody is safeguarding - will still be available, usually the email address will be safeguarding@ but it'll be on the school website. Somebody always monitors that inbox throughout the summer and there is likely to still be staff actually in the building finishing things up/sending files/updating data/etc anyhow.

It's better to email now and then follow up in September.

You can and should email the school about this, there will be some office staff there over the summer although not every day, also the head will pick up the email before September that way.

That won't find its way to the Head, especially as it's so non specific as to be pointless. Email safeguarding.

I tried to find that on their website but couldn't. But I do have the email for the head of governors as I have just been appointed a parent governor (start officially in September) so I will email him and ask how best to contact the head. Thanks

100% racist. Fair game to take the piss on politicians but it should never be acceptable to be racist. Especially as a teacher.

Sunak, come on the obvious is Richi (£), the man genuinely didn't know how much a loaf cost.

Actually it can be impossible for some people to say words in foreign languages correctly. Their ear and tongue have just been trained with a different range of sounds. I Chinese person could never pronounce my name correctly (for example) they're not being racist, their tongue just isn't shaped to do it. Also, the ear, the Congolese person might think they are pronouncing the name correctly and are repeating what they hear but their ear has been trained from birth to hear a range of sounds that might not include the sounds in your name.

Calling racism based on pronunciation as
told by an 8 year old is pretty wild.

I get that we inevitably come up with nick names for politicians ie "BoJo" and some are more offensive than others. I don't think it's appropriate for a teacher in a classroom to use them though.

I’m not sure it is ‘fair game to take the piss on politicians’ in a classroom.

School is a place to learn about how democracy works and to model disagreeing well and respectful debate. Name calling is at the foot hills of behaviour that can lead on to behaviours of intolerance and hate. This has no place in a civilised society. Or in a British classroom.

There was a thread here a while back where OP asked for the funniest names people had heard. Maybe a good half of the thread were foreign names that posters mocked.

You’d think most people would have enough common sense to understand the racial tones in mocking a foreign name but surprisingly not. But what makes it worse in your situation is that a teacher is teaching her students that it’s ok and that it’s ok to make fun of people generally. Definitely report her.

I think deliberately mispronouncing a name can definitely be racist and that goes for deliberately mispronouncing foreign words too.
For example, I watch "Come Dine with Me" and frequently, when shown a menu, someone will laugh uproariously at the name (frequently a commonly used one) of a dish foreign to them and seemingly lose all ability to read or to be able to repeat what they hear when told how to say something:
"Kefflyticker?"
"No. 'Kleftiko' "
"Kellytilly?" etc
Invariably ending up with a dismissive "Never 'eard of it".

But this sounds more like the teacher bringing her personal political views to the classroom which I think is also unacceptable. She's also doing it in a very childish way so it can't even be argued that she's helping her pupils to form political opinions in a reasoned way.
It's like people who always used to refer to "Tony Bliar", although that at least was a gettable "joke".
"Whiffy" Sunak doesn't even make sense.
I would definitely have a word with the head.

Yanbu if it actually happened that way, but as pp said I’d be taking an 8 year olds interpretation of this with a huge pinch of salt.

The teacher is either bringing her politics or racism into the classroom, neither are things a professional teacher would do. It could just be a childish joke. Hopefully just a one off.

what concerns me more is the behaviour when politely corrected and the dismissive attitude that come with it! . Like it’s an issue
Many times someone is calling out a name completely different to mine & ‘m expected to respond. When I explain why, I met with what ever! It’s the attitude of people when corrected. Not making the mistake in itself. Those that think it appropriate to give you a completely different name . Now that’s pretty poor.
You can tell when those have real difficulties and those that don’t. In my experience with the pronunciation.

In this instance it’s not racist but almost certainly political, which I presume isn’t acceptable for a teacher in their classroom?