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." Why is that important? For several reasons:
It is a valuable bargaining commodity.
One of my favorite disciplinary techniques is to say "You should be respectful to me, because I'm going to be respectful to you." Then I try to deliver on my promise.
It helps win support from the students.
If one student misbehaves, then you want the other students to follow you. And that is more likely to happen if the other students think they have your respect.
It helps inspire the students with a love of learning.
You have only one year to stuff your students' heads with facts. If you want to make a profound influence on your students, then you must instill in them a desire to continue their learning indefinitely. This will not happen if they associate learning with sitting in the corner wearing a dunce cap.
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 presence in the school is important
I don't like hall duty, either. But I have gotten one important benefit out of hally duty: it tests my ability to greet all students by name, even those students who make my job more difficult.
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 that. A fair compromise might be to say "I wish we could talk about this longer, but we have a lesson to get back to."
Go To Page: 1 2
