For the first time in my life, I am teaching a freshman course, English Literature for Grades 9 - 11. The experience is mostly good. As a student I enjoyed Dickens, Tennyson, Hawthrone and Shakespeare and anyone else I could get my hands on. I loved reading and I loved writing book reports.
Alhamdulillah, I have a pretty good relationship with my students. I am devoted to their education. I take time out to get to know each one of them personally and cater the lesson plan to their individual learning style. I have done everything from helping them write award-winning poems and essays to cleaning their wounds after an accident and mediating with their parents.
However, no matter how much you care for your students as a teacher, there will always be some who are ungrateful, rude, dismissive, passive-aggressive or even outright hostile.
These students, step on, belittle or otherwise sabotage your career as a teacher. Yes, there are students who want to get your fired because you didn't give up on them.
The most common method used by these students is to refute every single word out of your mouth by saying, "just to play the devil's advocate..." Like no! You are plain ignorant for arguing in favour of testing welfare recipients with experimental drugs is okay. Or the token nauseatingly self-righteous students who somehow manage to reveal their racism/sexism/classism in every class, burdening you with constantly having to correct their entire existence in the middle of your lesson. The students who bring no pen to class. The bad liars who have been pretending to be moving all semester. That excuse is almost as foolproof as saying, "my dog ate my homework." The students who strut into class 15 minutes late with music blaring through the headphones. Everyone makes way for their royal highnesses, to whom "school hours" do not apply.
I am sure my payroll should be doubled for having to deal with this kind of jerky behaviour. I assume students act like jerks because they think they have something to gain, and maybe they are right. Negative and unkind students may be less likeable but they are assumed to be more intelligent, competent than the students who express the same messages in a gentler way. The nasty jerky behaviour that some students display to their teachers helps them show off their prowess to their peers. This jerky behaviour comes off as cleverness or rebellion increases their social currency at school. If other students think of you as clever or rebellious student, they will respect you more; you will be invited to be their friend. As time goes on, this poisonous attitude gets transmitted to the rest of the classroom. Unless the teacher reacts to the students' jerky behaviour with her own nasty cleverness, she has lost their interest and respect. They underestimate your intelligence if you do not give them a nasty response.
Dear students,
Our classroom can be a nice place, a place of opportunity to make your world a richer and yourself stronger. I understand that you are coming from a different country, different culture and different values. But we can all choose to get along, we don't always have to lace our answers with vitriol. It is hard to do, but wherever possible, we should work on creating circles of niceness. We can do this by being attentive to our our own hard work, diligence, intelligence and integrity.
Alhamdulillah, I have a pretty good relationship with my students. I am devoted to their education. I take time out to get to know each one of them personally and cater the lesson plan to their individual learning style. I have done everything from helping them write award-winning poems and essays to cleaning their wounds after an accident and mediating with their parents.
However, no matter how much you care for your students as a teacher, there will always be some who are ungrateful, rude, dismissive, passive-aggressive or even outright hostile.
These students, step on, belittle or otherwise sabotage your career as a teacher. Yes, there are students who want to get your fired because you didn't give up on them.
The most common method used by these students is to refute every single word out of your mouth by saying, "just to play the devil's advocate..." Like no! You are plain ignorant for arguing in favour of testing welfare recipients with experimental drugs is okay. Or the token nauseatingly self-righteous students who somehow manage to reveal their racism/sexism/classism in every class, burdening you with constantly having to correct their entire existence in the middle of your lesson. The students who bring no pen to class. The bad liars who have been pretending to be moving all semester. That excuse is almost as foolproof as saying, "my dog ate my homework." The students who strut into class 15 minutes late with music blaring through the headphones. Everyone makes way for their royal highnesses, to whom "school hours" do not apply.
I am sure my payroll should be doubled for having to deal with this kind of jerky behaviour. I assume students act like jerks because they think they have something to gain, and maybe they are right. Negative and unkind students may be less likeable but they are assumed to be more intelligent, competent than the students who express the same messages in a gentler way. The nasty jerky behaviour that some students display to their teachers helps them show off their prowess to their peers. This jerky behaviour comes off as cleverness or rebellion increases their social currency at school. If other students think of you as clever or rebellious student, they will respect you more; you will be invited to be their friend. As time goes on, this poisonous attitude gets transmitted to the rest of the classroom. Unless the teacher reacts to the students' jerky behaviour with her own nasty cleverness, she has lost their interest and respect. They underestimate your intelligence if you do not give them a nasty response.
Dear students,
Our classroom can be a nice place, a place of opportunity to make your world a richer and yourself stronger. I understand that you are coming from a different country, different culture and different values. But we can all choose to get along, we don't always have to lace our answers with vitriol. It is hard to do, but wherever possible, we should work on creating circles of niceness. We can do this by being attentive to our our own hard work, diligence, intelligence and integrity.
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