Last Dance at Homecoming

I approve.

Being Missed

On the first day of school, one of my Latino students called me “Miss” to get my attention. It caught my attention because it was such a sweet-sounding thing. I’ve never been called “Miss” before. It makes me think of little children, calling their preschool teachers Miss Susie and Miss Anna. I wasn’t offended; sure, I’m an old married woman, but I’m not easily worked up over titles. Plus, it was the first day of school. They didn’t have to know my name right off the top of their heads.

Then it happened again. Someone – again, one of my Latino boys – got my attention in the hallway by calling me Miss.

I mention the fact that both boys were Latino because I suspected this was either a linguistic or cultural thing. When I realized I’d be teaching in this district, with its significantly higher Latino population, I wanted to be prepared to be a good teacher here. The Latino students at LMS were tough nuts to crack, and I wanted to learn how to interact more effectively. And, I’ll admit, I was concerned about what problems I might encounter. My new district has a (mistaken, I believe) reputation for disciplinary problems, mostly centering around the Hispanic population.

So I read up on the area, on issues facing Latino youth, on things teachers do wrong because they misunderstand the culture. And I learned that, culturally (and generally) they have a very different relationship with teachers than their non-Latino peers. Often, they avoid classroom participation, eye contact, etc., out of a sense of respect rather than apathy. Typically, they are taught to treat teachers with greater respect than we see in a lot of kids.

Plus, I grew up feeding my brain on stories about British school children, to whom calling any female teacher “Miss” appeared second nature. (This is confirmed by a colleague of mine from the UK.)

My point, if I have one, is that I took these two “Miss”s as a simple sign of respect, rooted in a cultural difference that I hadn’t encountered before.

And then it started to snowball. It seems like every time I turn around, another student – usually male – is calling me Miss. It’s ALL of them.

I spoke to some of the other teachers. They nodded as soon as I said it – apparently it’s not just me.

One of them, also married, forbids it in her classroom. She figures that she’s a Mrs., not a Miss, and that they’re largely being lazy. I’ve already encountered students who don’t know their teachers’ names – including their teachers from last year. (Maybe I should amend that to say that they don’t know their FEMALE teachers’ names…)

The other teacher, who is, in fact, a Miss, doesn’t mind. She told me that it stems from the ELL students, for whom it’s a respect thing. The other kids pick it up, but they also pick up the respectful undertone. So long as it’s not disrespectful, it doesn’t bother her.

I feel… not at all disrespected. It bugs me to think that they’re thinking of all female teachers as nameless – but then again, I don’t think of myself as Mrs. Bees. I think of myself as [Firstname]. And “Miss”… well, it just sounds so dang sweet. I can’t bring myself to tell them to knock it off.

Now, the kid who randomly belted out a monkey scream in the middle of independent work time… THAT I’ll tell them to knock off. Even though it was HELLA funny.