The Yellow Board: Re: Kids and manners

1. You *are* aware that ELLs tend to use broken English or incomplete/not 100% correct translation, right? Have you taken your ESL training this year? Calling a teacher "miss" or "mister" is an honest attempt to address them properly.

2. Or, more accurately, it's most likely a cultural difference. In some cultures, addressing someone specifically by name is quite aggressive. Heck, in some cultures, looking someone "superior" to you in the eyes in a form of challenge. Again, tolerance and multicultural knowledge is important.

3. You've never, once, ever, kept doing something that someone told you to stop doing. You've never kept talking in a faculty meeting when they asked for quiet or attention. You've also never been in a country that didn't speak English, and kept talking when someone said/shouted something at you in another language that you didn't understand. Well, maybe that last one.

Sure thing. They're "bad for education."

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1. Mr. or Miss is English, not Spanish.

2. When you are a student and are asked to refer to the teacher by his or her name and you deliberately and willfully do the opposite it is rude and shows a lack of proper upbringing.

3. If you think that disrespect towards a teacher is okay and that you would "happily" do it, you are part of what is wrong with education in our society and I hope that you leave the profession soon. We have enough problems in our society and in our schools without attitudes like yours.

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Or just refusal to acknowledge the culture of the school. I equate that to telling a kid to stop speaking Spanish just because you don't understand it. In this case, even as a kid, I would happily push that button over someone being willfully ignorant.

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Often, if it bothers a teacher, students will continue it just to "push a button."
Then in this case it is indeed, poor manners.

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Someone hit on the answer briefly, but I can give you more detail. In Spanish, calling someone "Senor" or "Senora" without a last name is acceptable and even preferred. (Yes, I know they need a tilde on the n's--I can't make that happen on this platform). When I began teaching in the mid-70s, teachers were angry when a student called them "Mr." or "Miss." At the time, the district had about 40% Hispanics. However, the reason was obvious--it's a simple matter of translation.
So why "Miss"? I think it's probably simply easier to say. If you'll notice, very few people actually say "Mrs.," even if it's with the last name--we've taken the 2 syllable word and turned it into "Ms." This may or may not be connected to the Women's Lib movement of the 60s.
Your non-Hispanic students have simply picked up the habit from their friends. Often, if it bothers a teacher, students will continue it just to "push a button."
Interestingly, by the end of my public school career, the tendency for students to use "Miss" had lessened considerably, this in a district that is about 85% Hispanic.
It's a complicated issue that generally just requires a bit of explanation to someone who doesn't understand.