Teachers & Students

I still remember, one day when I was in SPP level one in grade eight. The teacher didn’t come that day, so an other teacher came to take the class. We were asked to do some work, but we didn’t understand what he’d said. Andrea tried to ask him, but he was not listening, so he called out "Umm… teacher?” And the teacher turned to face him and said mockingly “ Yes! Student!” We didn’t know what was wrong with that.

We’ve discussed how we called our teacher back in our own country after that. In Taiwan (and China), we call teacher his or her sir name with the word teacher followed. It a kind of reminding that he or she is a person who teach you, give you knowledge and should be honored. Also in Italy, they’ve said that it was a proper way to call a teacher. But in English, it seems like they think using the word teacher is looking teacher as a person who serve knowledge and not respecting them. It was really a huge difference between what we’ve meant and he’d thought about the word teacher.

I’m fine with calling Mr or Ms if the teacher’s staying with you for years. But if it’s just for a day, please just let us call you teacher. You know, names are hard to learn.