Dad Has Enough Of Teacher Calling Daughter ‘Kelly,’ Calls Her Out During Online Class

Those YTAs were certified whackadoodles.

How TF is Keeley a strange name? I would start calling the teacher by a wrong name and wait for the penny to drop...

Does the teacher really think the kids consider her an authority when she can't even pronounce Keely?

I don't know where the poster is from, but i can assure you that Keeley is NOT considered a "non-traditional name" here in the UK, or in Ireland, where it originates (spelt as Caoilidh or Caollaidhe). It is reasonably common for girls to be called Keeley, particularly in the North of England.

It’s so annoying when the YTA folks in AITA answer a different question. The question wasn’t whether they should have given their child a different name.

As someone whose name frequently got mistaken for a similar one, absolutely NTA. Names are personal identifiers, and as a teacher you are expected to learn them. No problem of you get confused in the beginning, but this is wilful and disrespectful.

Nta and in my opinion, this might be worse than first appearances. If the teacher can't even respect something as fundamental as the name of a pupil it would make wonder how she teaches. I would be going to the head teacher.

"Teacher, I challenged your pronunciation of my daughter's name publicly, the same way you chose to humiliate her. If you can't handle that, imagine how my daughter feels. Now, let's be very clear about this; you will publicly apologize to Keeley, in front of the other students. You will turn this into a teachable moment about respect and communication. Or I will see you in court. Your call."

My name is Moya. I’ve been called everything beginning with M- Moira, Myra, Myrtle on one occasion. I’ve learned the best way is to pretend to ignore them. If they question it, I tell them I didn’t think they were talking to me. Pretty hard for a little kid though.

I wonder what that teacher would do if there was a hispanic student in her class with the name "Jesús".

I always told my students on the first day of class "If mispronounce your name or call you by the wrong nickname, just correct me. If I keep on getting your name wrong, don't say to yourself "I'm just nothing and no one to him.' Instead, say to yourself 'He's old and stupid' and keep correcting me." Worked like a charm.

Any one else immediately think of the Key and Peele substitute teacher skit? Lol? A-Aron? Dee-Nice? :D

Over the last few years we had training at my college to call people by their preferred name and to take care to pronounce their name correctly. Of course, this would now be viewed as extremist liberal DEI policy, but I will continue to do my best to get it right for my students

Teacher is doing it on purpose. Sheesh. Look at her name. Keeley. Anyone with half a brain would know not to pronounce this as Kelly. I looked at it and said it right the first time. People have mispronounced my name several times, even though it's easy enough to say. They also spell it wrong. I had a sixth grade teacher say and spell my name wrong. She wrote it on the blackboard and I went up and erased the second "a" she put in my name.

The kid should start mispronouncing the teacher's last name.

I'm more likely to remember the "uncommon" names quicker than the common ones. I have a patron I've probably seen only a handful of times over the years but I immediately recognize him because his name is so unique. He's thrilled every time I greet him.

When I went to high school there was a kid in my class called "Erasmus". Sure kids are cruel, but it was the teachers who really went to town with this.

There's a, really very good, English actress named Keeley Hawes - don't think I've ever heard her name being mispronounced.

Even if someone's never seen the name Keeley before, it's not hard to pronounced 'ee' as a hard E

Dorothy Jacqueline Keely, professionally known as Keely Smith, was an American jazz and popular music singer, who performed and recorded extensively in the 1950s with then-husband Louis Prima, and throughout the 1960s as a solo artist. Smith married Prima in 1953,

If this is US based you may soon be able to take legal action because it's not the kids legal name.

Everyone deserves the dignity of having their name pronounced correctly. The only exception is for accents (my French Canadian grandparents couldn't pronounce "TH" so names like Ethan came out like Eeten).

The YTA voters are idiots. They didn't name her Keeley just to be unique. It's a FAMILY NAME. One that has been in their family for a long time.

also, fact check for the morons claiming OP is a*****e and/or neglectful because of the child's name: it's literally no different than if a child's name was "Jon" instead of "John" and the teacher had continuously and intentionally pronounced it as "Joan." It's just a p***k being a p***k.

For all of those "YTA" a******s... Keeley is an common Irish name. I can imagine a child of Swedish heratige named Bjorn having the teacher callinig them "Beejoron" instead of "Be-yorn." To the YTAs... if your name is Jack, I'd call you Jay-ack! Hope ya like it! Kay-ren and Kat-ty.

Keelee isn't that unusual. Also if the child has corrected the teacher on multiple occasions and the teacher isn't doing it, this is Deliberate. I had a teacher like that. I got so stressed I started pulling the skin on my feet until they would bleed. The parent was right and the teacher As well as the schools handling of the continuing situation, was completely wrong.

Anyone whose job it is to TEACH should not have an issue with LEARNING something new or different. The proper response would have been to turn this into a teachable moment for the class; "I'm very sorry, you're right. Thank you for correcting me! Now, you see class, this is proof that everyone makes mistakes, and it's OK, as long as you recognize those mistakes and fix them." If you humiliate me publicly (which the teacher was doing by disrespecting the girls' name) you deserve to be humiliated publicly in return. I would tell my kid to start intentionally mispronouncing the teacher's name, and then when the inevitable conference happened, I would mispronounce the vice-principal or principal's name, just to prove the point. If you can't take it, don't dish it out. 100% NTA.

Janelle Collard

Janelle Collard

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"Aw, I'm sorry, teacher, your short-term memory is shot! Should *all* of the student wear name tags with the *correct* pronunciations of their names from now on?"

I have a name that I love that folks mispronounce all the time. I got upset when it happened every single day for the school year from my PE teacher. I corrected her all the time and it never made a difference. I’m glad that the OP stood up for his daughter. NTA

It sounds like maybe the teacher doesn't like her name and was doing it on purpose to punish her for it. She kept telling the old bat that her name is Keeley and NOT Kelly. If she won't say it right after being told several times then she deserves to be told to say it right. My kids went to school with some kids with kids whose names were hard to pronounce or were spelled completely different than how the parents say them but the teachers ALWAYS said them right!

The teacher is absolutely doing it on purpose. I teach. Whenever I hear of a student addressed by a nickname, as in a shortened name, I'll do that, too, as I want them to feel comfortable in a learning environment and that I respect them as individuals. I have a very simple name, and people still butcher it, and it's annoying. If the same person did it over and over, we would probably have a problem.

the teacher mispronounced the name in class, so "in public", multiple times despite all quiet corrections and even the parent's email calling it out. Teacher was refusing to pronounce that name correctly, and the parent should have emailed a complaint to the principal with copy to the school board about the teacher harassing their daughter by deliberately mispronouncing the child's name in class. Teacher had no right to demand privacy for correcting her public misconduct.

Given all the Tragedighes we’ve had with spelling in the past the name Keeley isn’t even remotely in that category. The YTAs can suck it.

My name is pronounced eye-lee-ah. A teacher put me next to a dude named Eli (ee-lie) and kept calling us both Eli. So not only was he mispronouncing my name, but also deliberately misgendering me. So I just stopped responding until he got on my case for not responding. I told him "My name is Ilia, not Eli." and refused to say anything else until he called me by my name. It is absolutely important to correct a teacher who refuses to call you by your actual name.

Earthquake903

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Teacher is a controlling b I t c h. Deliberately mispronouncing the name because she doesn't like it.

Oh BunnyGirlSD: "YTA for giving her a name she is going to have to correct people about her whole life?" Oh the drama. Not everyone is a doormat. Some people learn how to stand up for themselves and not put up with morons who can't be bothered to learn how to address another human being correctly in a social situation. Keeley is not that unusual or hard to pronounce. She's been given a free litmus test for the people she will meet in life. When someone mispronounces her name, she can mentally label them as an a*****e and avoid them.

Here’s what you need to say at the meeting “Keely’s wellbeing is my number one priority and that was being impacted by her name being mispronounced even after it was corrected by both of us on several occasions. Since I’m sure there won’t be a repetition of this problem, it won’t be necessary for me to speak up in class again, will I? And no need for you to apologize to me for mispronouncing Keely’s name, you can just apologize to her directly “

Is there a possibility that the teacher can't say the girl's name right? My son's name is Tristin, many people actually can not pronounce it right. They call him Tristian. :)