Boundaries

Recently, my dad sent an e-mail to the lit band that he runs at the school he teaches, and by mistake he signed it his first name instead of his last. He quickly sent a follow-up email saying "that's Mr. last-name, opps." He is now worried that the school will think that he broke the boundary between students and teachers, and that he may lose his job.

Is my dad's worry unfounded, or is this something to be legitimately worried about? I don't think so since it's the only time he did it, and he quickly responded to his mistake.

Sounds just like a spelling error. Nothing to worry about, imo.

Schools are really strict on stuff like this? My teacher in Jr.High told us to just call him by his first name, and I don't think he had any problems. This was many years ago, so I don't know if there's some new rule in effect now or something.

(OH GOD, THESE TEACHERS ARE SEDUCING OUR CHILDREN! WE MUST MAKE SURE THEY DON'T GET TOO CLOSE! TIME TO MAKE SOME UNNECESSARY RULES!)

My math teacher goes by Zolla, instead of Mr Zolla.
Losing your job because you 'break' the 'boundary' between teacher and student is pretty stupid.... Aren't teachers unionized anyway? As in, he wouldn't lose his job for anything less than shooting students?

My math teacher goes by Zolla, instead of Mr Zolla.
Losing your job because you 'break' the 'boundary' between teacher and student is pretty stupid.... Aren't teachers unionized anyway? As in, he wouldn't lose his job for anything less than shooting students?

Private school. They have yearly contracts.

I doubt he will, but even still if he's worried he should make it clear that he still expects to be called Mr. _______.

I seriously doubt that the school would totally go all-out on him just on that typographical error. That would be pretty dumb of the school to do so, IMO.

Considering private schools can do whatever the hell they want, you would know better than us. Those of us responding by saying there's nothing to worry about are most likely all from public schools, where everything is a whole different ball-game. First off, what age of students does he teach? It's one thing to be close friends with teachers like myself and many others are when it comes to high school, but a piece like that to even 6th graders might be questionable. Regardless, the promptness of his correction and the overall minimal nature of the issue means he most likely has nothing to worry about.

Again, it all comes down to the rules the private school has for the age of students he teaches, which is something none of us know. However, if people here attend private schools and can attest to instances of closer teacher-student relationships with regards to names/titles, then that's more of a testament to how insignificant the whole event may be.

In my days, we ditch the Mr/Ms/Miss/Mrs titles. Go straight for the last names or ditch that altogether and call them sirs/miss'. But um .. I dont see what the prob is either.

Well, I went to a private school for 13 years, and while we were always taught to address teachers by last name, a lot of them would take the formalities out of it. For example, Ms. Nicholas --> Ms. N, Mr. Tigchleaar--> Mr. T, etc. In the end though, its a matter of preference of the teachers. At University, I once got in trouble with a professor because I referred to one of his colleagues as "Buechner" instead of "Dr. Buechner", which left me baffled, because Dr. Buechner was never tied up with these formalities and always told her students to call her "Dr. B" or something equally informal (such as Sara).

While teachers have to keep their professional ethics and maintain a separation between teacher and student boundaries, teachers at my school were also encouraged to interact with students and get to know them.

Another thing about private school is that you will always get the chance to explain yourself. As long as your dad can explain that it was a mistake, that it wasnt his intention to overstep those boundaries, then everything should be okay, least it would be at my school.

Well, all I can say that if your school fires him for that, they're douchebags.

If a school fires someone for being called by there first name well that is absolutely ridiculous. Private school or not, that would be ridiculous.

It was a simple error. If anyone questions him, he can explain it as a simple error o_O Who doesn't make typos?

If a school fires someone for being called by there first name well that is absolutely ridiculous. Private school or not, that would be ridiculous.

It was a simple error. If anyone questions him, he can explain it as a simple error o_O Who doesn't make typos?

I was thinking about that too. He even sent another email to fix that mistake. Too much drama for something this silly. It's not like he accidently touched a kid or something.

I doubt he'll be fired, the least he might get is a small talk from someone that is of higher ranking than him.