Students addressing teachers by their first name. How common?

Lemme think, for K-8, my kindergarten teacher, 1st grade teacher, 3rd grade teacher, and 4th grade teacher were “Miss/Ms/Mrs First Name.” The only male teacher in my grammar school went by Mr Last Name. Or “Mr T” (as his last name began with T. He left early on, so I never had him as a teacher.) And the couple of nuns left were “Sister First Name.” (Or perhaps it was their adopted name–I can’t remember if they used their given names or took a new name on the sisterhood. At any rate, it was a forename, not a surname.) High school teachers were all honorific (whether Mr/Miss/Mrs/Ms/Coach/Brother) followed by surname to the best of my knowledge. No first names with or without honorific in high school that I remember. No non-honorific first names in grammar school. College, oddly enough, I don’t remember as well how I referred to teachers/professors. It would not surprise me if some just went by their first name, but my recollection is that most, if not all, used their last name.

I went to an extremely unusual (read: liberal) private school from 6th through 12th grade, and all the teachers and staff were called by their first name. The only person associated with the school we didn’t call by their first name was the baseball coach, and he was the only sports coach that wasn’t otherwise an instructor. I recall it being something of a big deal when comparing our school lives with neighbors or other friends.

I obviously had no problem with calling professors in college by their first name either. The business school I later went to was quite different though…

I addressed a teacher by his first name once. This was early 1980’s in Seattle at a private Catholic school. I was walking up the stairs and the teacher was walking down. As we passed each other, I looked at him and acknowledged him by nodding and saying “Earl”. He immediately turned around and ordered a senior to capture me and drag me down the stairs to him, where I believe he gave me a light smack to the head and a short but loud lecture. And I was one of his favorites.

A lot of my students (and, honestly, friends/co-workers) call me by just my last name, or a truncated version thereof–no Mr./Ms./Mrs attached. I like this–it keeps my role in place, and what I think as my first-name self sort of independent, but it’s not hyper-formal.

IME using last name alone is not uncommon in high school, especially for male teachers. It’s a little odd for female ones.

I also went to an extremely unusual, liberal high school, although mine was a public magnet program. We called all teachers, administrators, and staff by their first names, but this was not the practice at any of the other public schools in the district. Everywhere else it was Mr./Ms./Miss/Mrs. Lastname. I’d had a middle school science teacher who said he was fine with being called by his first name, but I don’t remember anyone actually doing so except as kind of a joke.

The college I attended was pretty traditional, and we addressed nearly all professors as Dr./Professor Lastname. I did have one professor (again a science instructor) who preferred to be called by her first name, although she said this was largely because she thought her last name (Pope) sounded silly when used with a title. Where I went to grad school it was more common to refer to professors by their first name.