Is this rude from a child? Age 6, furious reaction from teacher

[partytimed]

My DS was at school today and his teacher addressed the class saying “I don’t want to hear from you unless you need the toilet, you’re in pain or injured.” My DS raised his hand and said “I’m pain and injured is kind of the same thing.” Another teacher overheard and shouted at him so much he was crying and still crying about it at bedtime.

obviously I only have his account of the incident so this is all the detail I have. He didn’t think he had said anything wrong. I’ve noticed this year he’s complained of strict scary teachers and he’s becoming anxious about going to school. Would appreciate opinions on whether this apparently very big telling off was justified. He said his friends were comforting afterwards and he was crying and apologising whilst the teacher continued to shout.

My child basically never tells me about stuff in school, not because he doesn’t like it but because as soon as he’s home he’s no interest in reliving it! (I was the same when I was a student)l I’m always amazed by these 5-6 year olds who are able to and desire to give blow my blow accounts, with accurate timings, of teacher-class/student interactions!

In this context, yes.

Teaching has to be structured and the teacher has 30 individuals to consider. Unless you are prepared to pay for one-to-one tuition for your child they need to learn to fit in and shut the f up when so instructed, for their sake and that of others.

It starts like this - cute 6 year old makes cheeky riposte, and ten years later you’ve got a highly disruptive student wrecking his classmates’ education.

but There's time to yell at him? Okayyy

She won't have yelled. She will have used a firm tone. And yep, there's time to discipline to prevent him doing it all bloody year

I agree the teacher shouldn’t have had a 2 minute rant about a cheeky comment by a sis year old. But honestly, is it likely that happened? Worst case scenario is the teacher lost their temper a bit ( poor practice but not a sackable offence I hope) and gave the child in question a stern 20-30 second speech on how interrupting with a cheeky correction is being rude. To a young child in trouble 20-30 seconds probably feels like two minutes, but isn’t actually two minutes.

Me to Dc1 and 3: How was school?
DC1 and 3: Fine. (Or a grunt as they got older).

DC2: Charlie did this and that and then there was a HUGE BIG ENORMOUS fly in the classroom it was the biggest fly I have every seen and it buzzed around for hours and hours and hours and it was so noisy. Then JACK SPILLED HIS WATER EVERYWHERE and it was BIG mess and THEN Susan’s apple fell on the floor and got all dirty and the teacher washed it for her under the tap but Susan still didn’t want to eat it and she cried for AGES AND AGES AND AND AND

🤷🏼‍♀️

There are definitely times in class when they shouldn’t be heard! You clearly have little idea of what it’s like to teach or you are one of those parents who thinks your DC can do what they want in school and teachers have no right to tell them off.

If he can't help but be cheeky and disruptive, what is a teacher to do?

I don’t think he was being a smart arse. I have children be that direct to me, albeit older. I can’t imagine the rant lasted 2 minutes. If I shouted for two minutes, other teachers in the vicinity would have stepped in.
I would tell your son to keep questions like that to another time. The timing was probably more to do with it. Constant interruptions are so annoying and the lessons can go off on tangents, no matter how old they are. If I got a £ for every time a kid knocks my door for a toilet key bescause they cannot wait for them to be opened(no comments please on locked toilets please- phones, vaping and damage…) I would have retired by now. Bane of my life. They all know I have a key…
PS I always give it out as I am not unkind but does my head in when I am mid slow and then my menopausal brain forgets what I am saying or doing!
Hope your son will be happier in school soon.

shouting was probably not even shouting! As someone else said, he is cheeky he got called out and he felt embarrassed about it hence crying

You’ve got a smart arse kid on your hands watch your back!

Pedantic, or correct? He may genuinely have been confused as to why you’d need to alert the teacher if you’re injured but not in pain. Accuracy of communication is important to convey meaning.

Why is attention to detail a bad thing? He may be a future lawyer in the making.

And yet I often read on Mumsnet that smaller classes sizes, as provided for in eg private school, are of little/no benefit to students.

OP could your DS have a bit of a habit of this? Could this have been the straw that broke the camels back?

I remember when I was at school it was often the same people that asked constant inane questions, wanted to immediately share opinions or even give a running commentary on what the teacher was saying. It was really annoying to the other people in class let alone the teacher.

Now I understand that he's 6 and still learning how to behave but if he's never taught that he's being irritating to everyone and that there is a time and place for questioning he might not learn it.

Things like this are so hard out of context. But I'd imagine the fact the teacher had got to the point of making them silent means they were probably at the end if their tether of kids talking over her, chatting back, being disruptive etc. Her point was that she didn't want any interruptions unless they were significantly important and your child immediately responds with something unhelpful and unimportant 🤷‍♀️ its frustrating.

teacher as DS is very sensitive especially around shouting

You can work on making him less so by being a firmer with him at home. Teachers in primary schools pretty much never shout. But they do use very firm or brisk, no nonsense or cross tones and its the children who rarely told off in a firm way at home who call this "shouting" and get worked up over it. He's not a baby, he'll soon learn that in a class of 30 he has to be quieter and more obedient than you might expect at home.

But they aren't the same thing - you can be injured without being in pain, e.g. a small cut that bleeds a lot but doesn't really hurt, and obviously you can be in pain without being injured, if you are ill. If your DS is going to be pedantic, he needs to get his facts right!

Oh FFS.

A literal exploration?

No, he didn't shut up when his teacher told the class to not disrupt. That's badly behaved.

The best you can do is explain to your son that disrupting teachers is bad, if all 30 kids 'explored' (back chatted) everything the teacher says, it would be mayhem (well it's mayhem in state schools much of the time) and your son is contributing to a culture of disrespect.

Being a good pupil means do what the teacher tells you. Tell your son he's lucky to be able to go to school and learn and in the future to make sure he does as he's told in class.

At home, with you, he can do all the 'exploration' (back chatting) he wants if it suits you as a family. Not in a communal learning setting tho.

Hope this will be a lesson for your son. And no, do not go in and talk to the teacher, just teach your son how to behave in school.

I don’t shout in my classroom, but kids are often telling me to stop shouting at them as they’re not used to being told no. They take any form of being sanctioned as shouting because they don’t understand the difference between tone and volume.

Never mind whether you judge the comment, or his intentions, to be rude or not.

Tell him that’s not the point. He had been asked to be quiet/silent and he IMMEDIATELY disregarded that request. That’s the important thing here and something he needs to grasp quickly.

I suspect there are children who are encouraged to question everything in home discussions where parents have plenty of time to chew the fat with them. That’s fine at home. But there are different rules at school. The teavpcher is not your adoring mum or dad. They have 29 others to help and a lot of curriculum to get through.

Teach your child to understand the difference between A home and a school context. It won’t be a wasted lesson.

And at 6 years old he should know very well the difference between being injured and being in pain. It wasn't a very smart 'exploration' a bit ignorant 😂

Absolutely ridiculous of the teacher OP. YANBU.

And the teacher sounds like a fucking drone, happy to read out their teaching script handed down by Academy chain leadership paid more than the PM and yell at 6 year olds who are paying attention and want to contribute, and implement ridiculous behaviour strategies.

I'm actually surprised by a lot of the responses here. The bigger issue for me is that the class was told "I don't want to hear from you unless..." Like. WTF?! This is gross and in my book grounds to complain regardless of what happened next, especially in the context of other stories to just be completely quiet, etc.

It is interesting how we're normalising this. Your kid is 6. 6! Being told to sit in silence is asking too much, of anyone, let alone a 6 year old and the fact that many adults here are like, well, yeh, that's fine, just goes to show how deeply entrenched these systemic ideas are. I do understand that teachers are under enormous strain and having children be respectful and not too chaotic and noisy is quite necessary. But we need to be complaining about and changing a system that makes teaching so difficult, not accepting that our kids have to act like they're in the army under a strict regime from 4/5 years old.

Anyway, beyond that, I'm sure your kid was probably being a little cheeky. But the fact they were so so upset afterwards...I dunno. Usually the cheeky kids are pretty bouncy after a little telling off so this sounds like quite the telling off...feels completely overreactive to what happened in my book... (And ps, a teeny bit of cheekiness is to be celebrated, IMHO)

I can remember in infant school sitting cross legged on the scratchy carpet with fingers on lips during assembly or story time. We were expected to be in silence. And we were.

I have never said that. Please don’t ascribe other peoples comments to me as that isn’t fair. And also isn’t my opinion. Thank you.

🙄

It's not about whether his intentions were to be rude. He WAS rude.

My DD is like this - constantly arguing with the teachers over literal interpretations. She's just been diagnosed ASD.

Edited to add, perfectly formal for Year 2 to learn to sit in silence. There's a big BIG transition to juniors coming next year and once out of EYFS and the softly softly approach of Year 1, it gets much firmer in terms of what is appropriate in a classroom setting.