I’d like to know how about the geography and history of students calling their teachers by their first names.
For me, in Quebec from the late 80s to the early 2000s, nearly all teachers were addressed by their first names. It’s only in university that more formal forms of address became usual. The only university teacher I remember who wanted to be addressed more formally than he addressed students was an Opus Dei cunt who had a reputation for lording it over his students in other ways and would have been a great fit at Fox News.
How about you? Please mention where and when, especially if it has changed through time.
Went to school from the mid 70s to graduating high school in 1990, in Ontario. All teachers were addressed with the honorific / last name.
My children are in school now (just finished Grade 5 and 4 yesterday) and address all teachers as Mr./Mrs/Ms/Miss, as needed. (Or Madame, Mademoiselle, or Monsieur, in French class.)
In my entire educational history I had only one teacher (a young instructor in one of my college Political Science courses) who wanted to be addressed by his first name.
My kids addressed their pre-school teachers by first name, but never after they started regular school.
Grade school, USA, in 90s and 2000s, university late 2000s.
In grade school, teachers’ first names were a highly kept secret. No, seriously. They did NOT divulge their first name to you. Even if you asked politely. Only after I graduated from high school did I find out the first names of three of my past teachers. So by consequence my teachers were only called Mr., Mrs., or Ms. LastName.
In university there was a much more relaxed attitude and we would refer to our program’s professors by first and last name when talking about them and “Professor LastName” when talking to them. If you met often or worked closely it would often be just “FirstName” when asking them a question. Those we didn’t see every day because they were professors of our general requirement classes were usually just “LastName” when talking about them and “Professor LastName” when talking to them.
Pacific NW here. At the community colleges and universities I’ve attended, both undergrad and grad, I don’t recall ever addressing a teacher by anything other than their first name.
I now teach at the community college level. On the first day of class, I tell my students that I prefer to be addressed by my first name.
Southern Plains, US, school '60s and early '70s. Got the only paddling of my truncated academic career for calling a teacher by his first name. Thanks a lot, Leon (Pepper).
Was addressing someone by first name and patronymic usual as opposed to just first name? When would someone address another person using just first name vs first name + patronymic vs first name + patronymic + last name?
Were there times when only the patronymic would be used?
I’m curious about formality when it comes to Russian names so do tell. Your knowledge must be collectivized for the good of the board, tovarisch Terrovich.
Very close friends are addressed by first names or diminutives of first names.
All other friends are addressed by first names, usually shortened (Misha, not Mikhail).
More formal exchanges (like student to teacher, or underling to boss, or even colleague to colleague who are not friends) are full first name + patronymic. Shortened first names are never used with a patronymic, obviously.
Yet more formal exchanges used to use Tovarishch (today, Gospodin/Gospozha) + last name. Tovarishch is still used in the military.
People are rarely addressed using all three - that is, first name, patronymic and last name. That is usually done when referring to someone in third person.
Would vary. Boss to underling usually is name+patronymic as well, but can be more familiar if the boss is friendlier with the underling or, alternatively, if the level of respect for the underling is very low.
Teacher to student - depends on the situation. Almost never name+patronymic, unless in an extremely formal situation. Usually by full first name, or, if the relationship is fairly friendly and in an informal setting, could be a shortened first name.
Retired from McGill the last day of 1999. No student ever addressed me by first name. I cannot even get the office staff to do so (and, believe me, I tried). They still won’t. My kids went to school here and never addressed any teacher by first name.
K-12 the only teacher who was ever addressed by first name was the home ec teacher. Well the foreign language teachers would have switch to first names if the object of the lesson was informal speech. In turn we students were almost always addressed by first name; though the PE teachers usually address boys by last name alone. I had one older social studies teacher addressed boys the same way, but invariably all the girls as “Miss” Lastname. Oh, and senior year Mme X switched to using *vous *and address as all as M/Mlle Lastname because that was the custom for students in the terminale year of lycée, but she reverted to tu within a fortnight. College was a mixed bag, and on the working world I’ve always called every co-worker and supervisor I’ve ever had by their first name.
As with many, I had the opposite experience in the United States. Honorifics and last name only from 1rst grade school to 12th, spanning the 1970’s to mid-1980’s. Primarily the states of California, Michigan and New York.
When I hit college first names became universal with all TA’s and many but not all professors, particularly in upper division classes related to your major. It usually wasn’t a terribly clear line. I’ve had a couple of professors that clearly stated their preference to being called by their first name on the first day of class, but that was unusual. Usually it was more they used their first name casually and folks picked up on it. It was rather less common with older ( say over 55 ) professors that tended to be addressed a bit more formally unless you got to know them very well. I had one or two younger professors that were slightly passive aggressive about referred to formally, but not many.
However I was a double major in biology/history and in upper-division biology classes in particular a lot of time on multi-day field trips tended to break down social barriers.
Never a first name until college, and very few then. Mostly Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms, but there were a few in college who introduced themselves as “Professor Lastname”, so that’s what I used, although as it was a rinky dink community college, I sort of did an internal eye roll. Not that they were bad teachers, mind. Some of them were legit Professors, with terminal degrees and tenured positions, as well, at some of the best universities in Chicago. But community college doesn’t really lend itself to the gravitas of “Professor,” and none of them were full time there.
There was one teacher in high school who had the students call her by her first name, but I didn’t have her. She didn’t last long before she was sent to purgatory - the worst school in the district, where all the “BD” (Behavioral/Discipline) students were sent. The word was that she was found lacking the professionalism fitting our school.
Chicago and the burbs, 1980-2011.
As my mother was a teacher with teacher friends, I know more than a few of my old teachers personally. They’ve all asked me, when I was in my 20s and 30s, to call them by their first name. But I just can’t. Even on Facebook, where several of my old high school teachers have Friended me, I still address them as Mr. or Mrs. _____