There's a longstanding unwritten rule that students, whether in first grade or college, must address their teachers as, e.g., Mr. Lastname rather than, e.g., Firstname. No offense to PMS's own Mr. Lastname, but I don't see the sense in this. It seems to encourage the distant antagonism that exists between most students and teachers but which is surely detrimental to the work and well-being of both parties. It's goofily old-fashioned and it has an antidemocratic ring to it, a quiet echo of the class hierarchies that the United States was supposed to have discarded two centuries ago.
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If it's neither true by definition nor falsifiable, then it isn't important.
Class hierarchies? Huh?
I could maybe see that it might change in college, but up until then, the teacher is very much supposed to be an authority figure in the classroom. Children are children, and when they're in school, there are rules to follow to ensure that things go down how they're supposed to, and the teacher is the enforcer of those rules. Say someone keeps talking during class, and the teacher tells them not to. That carries more force if it's "Mr. Lastname" as compared to "Jim".
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Surely you don't mean to suggest that the instructor and the student are on the same level academically.
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From: undertaker shy guy | Posted: 4/25/2010 8:00:30 PM | #002
Class hierarchies? Huh?
Two groups of people who address each other asymmetrically makes me think of, for instance, masters and servants.
Whether or not teachers should serve as authority figures is another issue. Assuming for the sake of argument that they should, I don't agree that terms of address will much affect students' likelihood of obeying teachers. I attended an elementary school which had a universal first-name policy and the students were generally obedient, and a middle school which used last names and titles and the children would
never stop talking. There were no doubt lots of factors that led to these differences in student behavior, but I don't think naming was one of them.
From: UtarEmpire | Posted: 4/25/2010 8:25:27 PM | #003
Surely you don't mean to suggest that the instructor and the student are on the same level academically.
By no means.
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If it's neither true by definition nor falsifiable, then it isn't important.
We discussed this topic in a class today, as a reflection on social conventions. The professor asked the class if they'd prefer it if he addressed us as "Mr. Lastname," etc. and the students called the professor by his first name. Most people seemed to be uncomfortable with that notion but I think it would be kind of cool.
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What do you think of the "Mr. Firstname" structure?
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What do you think of the "Mr. Firstname" structure?
Doesn't work very well. Certainly not as well as "Dr. Firstname" or "Professor Firstname."
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From: Kodiologist | Posted 4/26/2010 4:33:25 AM
Two groups of people who address each other asymmetrically makes me think of, for instance, masters and servants.
Whether or not teachers should serve as authority figures is another issue. Assuming for the sake of argument that they should, I don't agree that terms of address will much affect students' likelihood of obeying teachers. I attended an elementary school which had a universal first-name policy and the students were generally obedient, and a middle school which used last names and titles and the children would never stop talking. There were no doubt lots of factors that led to these differences in student behavior, but I don't think naming was one of them.
There's the difference. Everything else is irrelevant.
I think you're at least partly right. In a Life in Hell strip, Matt Groening referred to middle school as "the deepest pit in Hell".
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If it's neither true by definition nor falsifiable, then it isn't important.
I was hoping to get Kodi's opinion on the Mr. Firstname construct. Oh, also, what about just go by Lastname?
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"To truly live, one must first be born." ~ Evan [aX]
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Oh, sorry. I see "Mr. Firstname" as silly because the title is nearly always a redundant honorific, as opposed to something necessary for disambiguation. "Lastname" isn't so bad. I wouldn't like to be called "Arfer" myself, since I identify much more strongly with my first name, but surnames have the advantage of being more diverse. Any group of thirty or so people, such as a class, is likely to have two Emilys or two Michaels or two Andrews or two Ashleys, but the chance of a surname collision is significantly smaller. The primary disadvantage of "Lastname" is that it fails to distinguish between close relations, implying a troubling admixture of, e.g., my and my father's identities. I love my dad and all, but I'm not him!
To be clear, the thing I object to isn't any particular form of address so much as conventions of asymmetric naming. And the kind of asymmetry that troubles me is not that one person is called "Firstname" and another is called "Mr. Lastname", but that the same person expects different forms of address from different people. That is, I don't object to calling Mr. T "Mr. T", because he expects no less of anybody else.
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If it's neither true by definition nor falsifiable, then it isn't important.
I dunno, I think there's a problem with the structure itself in schools. There's one school I know of where everyone is Mr. Lastname, and the staff refer to each other as Mr. Lastname, and I think even the students are Mr. Lastname. It's not as warm of an environment as a place where everyone is Firstname. I think it might be the reason one of the people who dropped out of the program dropped out.
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Yeah, I can see that. I strongly prefer "Firstname". Y'know what's really weird? Spouses who refer to each other as "Mr. Hislastname" and "Mrs. Hislastname". There aren't many of those left, I think.
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I'm not sure why colleagues would ever refer to one another by an honorific, though. Like I can see it if there's a tangible rank of some kind in between--say a grad student and a professor, or even full professor addressing some ancient prestigious chair--but when you're talking about primary or secondary teachers, it's a little ridiculous. Like robots.
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Well, I imagine it's just an extension of how you refer to them when in front of the students. If I'm constantly going to call one of my colleague's Mr. Doyle when talking to a student or in front of a student, will I remember to call him Kevin when I'm not? Well, maybe, it depends on how often that is and how collegial we are.
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me too
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