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Respect--That Important R Word

© Thomas Robertson

I have heard of a superintendent who would ask every teaching candidate, "How do you get respect from your students?"

He found that every superior candidate answered with words to the effect of "respect is a two-way street."

Respect is a vague word. The best definition I can come up with is "treating the other person as if the other person is important." Some teachers are afraid to show respect for students for fear that the students will not regard them as authorities. But respect and authority are not mutually exclusive. Let's look at some messages which must be conveyed in order to register both respect and authority:

that you are not administering consequences out of malice

I have never lost any authority by saying, "I hate to do this, but I'm going to have to give you a demerit."

that you have to enforce rules just as the student has to follow them

If you don't allow a student to wander off from the rest of the class, is that just because you like to be bossy? The student probably thinks so! An effective solution might be to explain to the student that you yourself could get in trouble if an accident happened to either that student or the rest of the class.

that the student's opinion is important

Yes, I realize that there's not enough time to offer a hearing for every student who protests his or her innocence. But that's no reason to rudely cut off a student who pleads innocent. After all, the students probably don't realize the limits of the teacher's time . A fair compromise might be to say "I wish we could talk about this longer, but we have a lesson to get back to."

that the student's feelings are important

"You get your hands off me or I'll !@#$%^& your !@#$%^& into the !@#$%^&!"

You may feel tempted to say, "You watch that mouth of yours unless you want to spend all day in detention!" But that would overlook a very important element in the conflict, and that is the student's feelings. How about, "Can you say why you're angry without swearing or insulting anyone?"

that the student's knowledge is important

I recently subbed in a class of six boys in a secondary school for delinquent students. You could imagine how those boys reacted to being required to take sewing class. I was needing a pincushion that day, though, and I didn't know how to make one. So one of the students delighted in showing me the steps.

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