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this may sound stupid but,,,,,

First day of winter - 21st December right? as in the winter solstis??

the reason I ask is because my friends son was told, by his primary school (elementary if you're in the US i think) no less, that the month of November was a winter month, ie it's winter now, not Autumn.

Am i going nuts or is his teacher a little confused?

According to Wiki, both are right.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter

From wiki page...Scandinavia, winter traditionally begins on 14 October and ends on the last day of February Well..you learn something new everyday.. ;D I didn't know about such 'tradition' ::) In october in scandinavia there is still autumn colours..so its autumn..november there is chance of first flecks of white stuff, so yes its winter, sun start to shine in such a strenght that  you can feel it on your skin even there is loads of snow still on ground , that about march, its spring...

November has always been winter to me.

It has been a wonderful Autumn but the fogs and colder temps tell me winter has finally arrived.

November has to be Autumn for me.  Dec/Jan and Feb are long enough for winter without an extra month.

I have always gone by the sun dates, ie 21 Dec is the start of winter.  The met office seem to say in weather forecasts that the beginning of December is the start of winter.  November not really, but with the extremely low light levels we had here over the last couple of weeks, it might as well have been mid-winter  :(

Yes I love snow too, because the sun reflects off the snow crystals and it gets twice as bright as a consequence.  So it doesn't feel so bad.  This neverending fog and mist is the worst.  For me winter is the 'lack of light season' rather than a specific date.

 Once the clocks go back I term it as winter. Even though our spring and autumn seasons have appeared to moved slightly, which might have something to do with the so called global warming.

The 21st of December is termed as mid winter and has not changed at all and due to less daylight hours is naturally colder. I can see that this year with seasonally higher temperatures we could still term it as autumn, but thinking back to last spring it was darker and colder than usual and  I had quite a mission on getting our plants to start performing naturally. I thought last winter was long and cold even the snow came early. 

The kids will soon learn that teacher was perhaps right this year but when they have to start paying their own fuel bills they will know when it is winter.