Hello Miss

Working in military schools one lived and socialised alongside pupils and parents. I once acted as crew for one of my sixth form pupils!
Back in UK I was once checking out at a supermarket and the young woman on the till said You're Mrs * who taught at ** school! I'm **, I were a right cow weren't I? I had to be honest and totally agree with her. She said that if her kids turned out anything like her she'd f**** kill them!

I taught in HE and regularly used to meet ex-students in town - who then proceeded to tell me their life story since they graduated. In some ways it’s nice especially when they tell you that your subject made a huge difference. The awful thing is when you can’t remember their name!

We used to play spot the teacher on holiday. They were usually sitting by the pool reading Charles Handy. My DH was over the moon when I decided I’d had enough of teaching because it meant we didn’t have to go away in school holidays. The golden rule is not to teach in the district where you live. I found that out the hard way when I was on teaching practice near our home.

Who goes into a profession thinking about who they might meet associated with it many years on. Teachers don't think at 21 Oh I might meet some of these youngsters When I've retired and not like it. If you stay local and have taught 30+ children for forty plus years, think how many ex-pupils there are.
If I meet my plumber in the street I say Hello but wouldn't dream of asking him about a blocked drain. Somehow people think teachers and medics live their job all the time.
We loved our jobs and the children when we did work with them but after retirement or on holiday, you want peace and to be anonymous.
Just thought of the worst one, a former pupil from school on "Love Island" luckily I never taught them when they were interviewed.

I am a retired gynaecologist living in the same area I worked. I am often greeted by former patients in the supermarket. Occasionally I get asked for medical opinions over the produce.

My DH was still in job when we were selling our house. A couple came to view with their children in tow, one of which was in his form class. After the shock from both sides and the ‘Hello Sir’ my DH made a quick exit with the dog.

It’s the same for other professionals with patients, clients and even random people who discovered what you do and go in for a free consultation!

I’m in FE, I have lots of ex students on my FB. I love bumping into ex-students! I live quite a way from where I work so don’t often see current ones. I received a text at 10pm the other night and I was wondering who the heck it could be at that time when I discovered it was a young man who’d sadly been unable to complete his course last year and who was wondering if I’d be a referee for him. It was so lovely to hear from him that the lateness of the text was totally forgiven!!

I also do some work with tiddlers and love seeing them when I’m out and about!!

I retired a lot of years ago and always loved bumping into ex pupils especially older ones. And the would always be happy to see me and talk about their time in my classroom. Often complementing me. I felt very humble.
A friend of mine who is also retired for 10 years now and many of her ex students have got in touch with her(messages of course) and she loves it.

On holiday with my parents when I was young, we were appalled when a patient of Dad's interrupted us as lunch to discuss a stool sample she'd brought to show him in a tobacco tin! Teachers don't have to deal with that sort of thing.

My father was a teacher (or schoolmaster, as he would have said) and always emphasised how important it was to live nowhere near his school.

What shocks me is the idea that a pupil would address a teacher as “Miss” without the surname. It would never have been allowed in my school.

I love bumping into former pupils. I've had quite a few discounts from them for household goods or services, which has been lovely. Living in a village and not being able to drive meant that I relied on buses for visiting local towns. One summer holidays my daughter and I were on different buses over three days and every day one of the childminders was on with the same children who greeted me with, 'Hello Miss'. It was quite funny and I enjoyed it really.

Another time I was in hospital, feeling very ill with gallstones, and the lady in the next bed was a parent and was visited by my former pupils. I was in no mood then for polite exchanges, unfortunately.

I had my tail bone removed at a different time and had my dressing changed daily by a district nurse. I had no idea that she was a grandma of a pupil until she came up to me in the playground when I was back teaching and asked how I was.

I must say that I do miss teaching but am so glad that I missed out on this year.

I always lived at least 30 miles or more from schools I taught in. Very occasionally I've encountered students, only once did a 6th former tell me he had travelled to my home town and checked the electoral roll to find my address. Shame I'd just moved in the last school holiday!

I am a lecturer; I am not yet retired but this drove my Mum and still drives my kids in sane, as I can’t go anywhere without bumping into present or past students.
When my husband was dying many of the nurses were past students, whom I had taught on an access course.

I work on an Access to education course and A’level courses I have changed quite a few lives. So, I guess people always want to talk to me and view me as a friend.

Once a police officer jumped out of a car and stopped me in town. I though ‘Oh no what have I done’. It was a passed student who had had a rough life but joined an access to public services course, she had stuck with it and got into the force. Stories like that are wonderful and always a pleasure to see these students.
I am ok with it but it can be embarrassing when someone remembers me and I think who the heck are you? Also, not all students are nice so that can be awkward.

It never bothered me at all, and many of my former students are now, albeit at a bit of a distance, friends on Linked in or Facebook. I am just delighted to learn how so very many of them, the vast majority, have had such useful and interesting lives and are happy to keep me, as it were, “in the loop”.

Try being a community mental health nurse bumping into your patients when off duty ?

One weekend I was out with my husband in the local shopping centre. A boy in one of my classes greeted me. On theHis face Monday in the classroom he said “I saw you at the shops Miss holding hands with your husband!”
I mischievously replied “ ssh please don’t tell anybody but he’s not my husband.”
His face!

I should have previewed this post!

I moved to another county to train and work as an Occupational Therapist. Imagine my surprise when I bumped into my old form/chemistry teacher - he had got a job at a school in the same town I worked in.
Some time after that I had to take a patient home from the psychiatric day centre I worked at. She had forgotten her key so we had to go to her daughter's school to get her key. Guess who came to meet us..... my old teacher again!
We kept in touch after that, I went to his house and met his wife and children and when I got married I invited them. We still meet up occasionally and stay in touch on Facebook - I am 53 now!

My DS, who's been a teacher for twenty years, had a disconcerting experience two years ago when taking his son to an Open Day at their local high school - "Hello Sir" said the man who would be his son's teacher.... ?
DS said it made him feel ancient. I couldn't stop laughing ?

My friend is a teacher. She bumped into a pupil one weekend. The pupil said "Miss, look at your hair"! Obviously it wasn't up to school standards.

I taught at the local senior school for 20 years and often met up with students I had taught. I remember two boys in particular who had both been 'difficult' at school. They happily apologised for the way they had behaved and proceeded to tell me how they had changed, got good jobs, a wife/girlfriend, their own place etc. It gave me so much pleasure.
Another girl from my tutor group used to be my hairdresser and chat about what some of the others were doing.
The only time it was a problem was when I was on holiday in Rhodes, sunbathing by the hotel pool, when a young lad surfaced from the water beside me, shouting "Hello, Miss!" Luckily I wasn't topless and his family went home after a couple of days.

The problem was being hailed by pupils about whom you could not remember a thing. Changes from teenager to middle aged parents are considerable. On the other hand it is flattering to be remembered in old age. Teachers of PE in my day had problems with visualising some pupils when writing reports out of maybe 450 seen in a week. For a while reports were automated into a number of stock phrases you could recycle in any way that xeemed convincing. Parents soon saw through this demanding we return to labotiously hand written ,apparently convincing thought pieces about their special offspring. That was in the days before computers. I suspect that the same thing is still happening in typescript form and judging by a primary school report I saw a few years ago amount to many pages long, covering every subject as well as behaviour and reasons for this. Teachers accomplished the near impossible in the past. Now it is straight impossible.

A very good reason to keep your clothes on!

My friend used to run the diabetic clinics in her surgery. She was always meeting patients with the most unsuitable foods in their trollies. She always commented!
Not only teachers?