'Miss' must stay. As a teacher I can say that

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/14/miss-teacher-feminist-respect

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Apparently, calling a female teacher Miss is not a sign of respect. Instead, it diminishes her authority, because the word – used in class since the Victorian era – is simply a marker of a woman's unmarried status. By comparison Sir, a title originally given to knights, confers an unmatched weight and authority on male teachers. To counter this, we should rid ourselves of such terms, and have students address teachers by their first names.

This is the argument some academics have been making this week. Yet my experience as a teacher tells me something very different. In class, the male and female titles have comparable authority and are not the problem here. What is of far greater concern is how students can, and do, undermine female teachers by discussing their physical attributes and labelling them with a plethora of sexist terms, from the standard "bitch", to the more recent "sket".

My Nigerian parents taught me many things about my place as a child, and one abiding principle was never to refer to an adult solely by their first name. To do so would have been an act of disruption and disrespect; a step towards inverting the social hierarchy, prompting a possible spiral into chaos. Family friends were therefore known as Aunty X and Uncle Z. So ingrained was the practice that as a grown woman it took years before I could refer to my partner's parents by their first names.

Calls to drop Sir and Miss are blind to the ways first names can be used to the detriment of teachers. Pupils are forever inventive when it comes to communicating disrespect. How would you reprimand a child who consistently mispronounces your name, preferring instead a diminutive like Lolo or Lols? The possibilities are endless. "Hello year 9, I'm your new English teacher and you can call me Richard."

"All right, Dick".

Many teachers will tell you that whenever students spot them in a public place, other than school, they seem stunned by the thought that teachers exist beyond the classroom. The terms Miss and Sir allow teachers – who may themselves sit through meetings pen and paperless, daydreaming about what to get from Sainsbury's later – to establish themselves as dour knowledge-givers and sticklers for the rules.

On any given day a student will embarrass themselves no end by calling me Mum, and I'm also sometimes accidentally called Sir. As someone who is sadly only 5 foot one-and-a-half, I know it is not my physical presence that inspires this. For students, adults with authority, those they know they must respect, end up bunched together. Miss and Sir become interchangeable because they are comparable in status.

The Victorians have a lot to answer for, but we can and do transform much of what we've inherited from them. The way they addressed teachers should continue, not least because the thought of hearing my name repeated hundreds of times a day is maddening. "Lola, can I go to the toilet?" "Lola, he took my rubber band!" "Lola, please can I go outside to blow my nose?" Let's not do this to teachers. Miss and Sir must stay.