Teacher told my child that child is not a Muslim

[Jkam24]

My daughter has recently started reception and asked me today if our family are Muslims, to which I said yes. She then started crying saying her teacher told her that she (my daughter) is not a Muslim. Is it unreasonable to be angry about this?

I can't decide whether to report some of these posts or leave them so everyone can see the thinly disguised bile being aimed at the OP.

Right, I've lived in England all my life and never heard it pronounced with a soft G. Would that be like a French pronunciation.?
School friends, colleagues, neighbours..all Gillian with a hard G , as if it's spelled Jillian.

You really believe there’s no Islamophobic teachers in the UK? There’s just as many in the schools as there are people on this platform.

Jillian would be like a soft G wouldn't it.

Giant - soft G. Like a J. Like Jillian.

Goal - hard G. Like Monty Python's Terry Gillian.

Zhillian - what you are thinking of.

Oh right. Do you mean the g sound like grow not giant?

Yes teachers can have prejudices just like the rest of the population. One of my kids heard a teacher she liked and respected telling the class something completely wrong about Catholicism. She was old enough to just speak to the teacher quietly after the lesson. Obviously different for a four year old.

Sorry, cross post. I get it now 👍

Yes.

I can only hope it was a misunderstanding or your child misheard her.

If not then of course it sounds weird. As in 'I have a very pre-prescribed idea about what Muslims look/dress like and if someone doesn't fit that description then I will not believe they are Muslim'. It seems a very ignorant thing for a teacher to say!

Surely if a child says what religion they are then teacher just agrees. It's not exactly up for debate is it? And the teacher shouldn't be telling the kids what faith they are/are not!

So much for child protection!

Thank you. That explains it perfectly.

Find it a very odd that a teacher would have to ask MN about how to approach another teacher to clear up what is most likely a misunderstanding. 🤷🏻‍♀️

This does remind me of when a friend of my DD’s asked me if he was Muslim when they were little.

He is of Indian origin and I knew his parents very well and I told him that no, he’s not Muslim as I thought that a) he’d probably know if he was Muslim, b) I’d probably know if he was Muslim through my friendship with his mum, c) balance of probabilities, unlikely to be Muslim as of Indian descent, rather than Pakistani.

Later that evening though I started second guessing myself and had to send a weird out of the blue text to his mum asking if she’s Muslim. I must have sounded like an idiot. I made a mental note to not engage in religious conversations with little kids after that as you can get yourself in a right pickle!

Yes,there are millions of Indian Muslims.

Not one that would blatantly say to a child 'you are not a Muslim' And why would someone say that? In what context? It doesn't make sense, and if it doesn't make sense it's not true. Clearly a case of a child totally misunderstanding a conversation.

I love this. Bless her!

This has happened to me all my life. I’m mixed race, but look white, and Muslim. I can well imagine this happening if your child looks white - people seem to confuse colour and religion.

Gillian pronounced like Jillian would be a soft G. A hard G would be like guitar or gun or garbage. A soft g is like giraffe or geography.

I've never heard the name said with a hard G but I have only ever lived in England.

But even if the teacher was Islamaphobic I don't understand why she'd tell a child she wasn't Muslim. I cant imagine a conversation like that in Reception, if a child told me they were a Jedi I'd say 'Oh, OK' and move on.

And the didn’t happen of the year award goes to…..

Even your child didn’t know so it can’t feature that strongly in her life. Don’t worry about it.

anyway. She’s 4. She can’t have a religion really. Her parents can but she’s too young. At this age kids just believe what they’re told, they don’t have critical thinking skills

Going to put my Richard Dawkins hat on and say there's no such thing as a four-year-old Muslim (or Christian, or Hindu, or any religious group), just a four-year-old with Muslim parents.

That's completely irrelevant to the thread and the OP's concern - unless you are the child's teacher.

I'm disappointed you haven't come back op! What happened? My friend's 5 year old grandson told her he was an alligator in the school play and she cut up her tablecloth to make his outfit ... NARRATOR! Not alligator! She didn't really see the funny side at all!