Why teachers are losing respect in the eyes of students
By: Mohammad Nadeem Parray
Teachers are an extremely important facet of any society for a number of reasons and their role in society is both significant and valuable. Teachers play an extraordinary part in the lives of children for the formative years of their development and the importance of teachers is something that cannot be understated. They involve themselves in molding their students into responsible citizens of their country.
However, in recent years teachers are facing many difficulties in teaching the students. Though be it making them learn, creating interest among young minds, making them understand the importance of career etc. No doubt, teachers are genuinely trying their best but they are not able to reach up to the mark. On the contrary, the teachers are losing respect because of certain things! Teaching the present generation is the toughest job and teachers must be extremely careful. Below are the 10 points which I feel are the major reasons why teachers are losing respect . . . . !
- Treating student like KIDS
I personally believe that every generation has a unique quality that makes it amazing for its time, so is today’s generation! In reality, we cannot compare current generation child with previous generations. Opportunities, technology etc. are changing over a period of time. The opportunities that are available today are more than the previous generation had available.
With this aspect, teachers generally do not change their behavior in the class with changing generations. They still treat students like KIDS! They scold, shout for no/small reason! We all must agree that students are mature enough to take right decision about their career; they just require mentoring and valuable guidance. Over-pampering, forcing your views on them may results into losing your respect in their mind.
- Ignoring queries of students
Every query of a student must be respected. We should never categorize student’s query into useless and genuine query. If the query exceeds more in number, teacher may request students to wait patiently for their turn to get an answer. Sometimes students do not have any idea whether they are asking genuine queries or irrelevant queries. Accepting and answering all the queries of all the students is the duty of all our teachers.
- Use of crammed PPT’s in classroom!
Use of crammed and many-slides PPT’s is another reason why students lose attention in the class. Teacher use 100 slides for 1 chapter with almost all the contents covered in the chapter. We all must believe in the fact that – PPT is not a study material and a reference material. Only imp topics, diagrams and key points must be included in PPT. The presentation, font and color of the PPT must be decent enough.
- No technology and innovative pedagogy in the classrooms!
Today, the entire world is a fan of technology. Education sector has no exception in this. It is a fact that- Technology is whole and sole responsible for reducing the efforts taken by learners (students) and teachers in terms of gathering useful information , printed notes and journals, writing assignments, use of offline compilers for code execution, use of smart boards as a teaching assistant etc.
Most of the teacher still sticks to rote learning. They use traditional pedagogical methods to teach practical concepts. This results into loss of interest of the subject. According to statistics, in 1 hour of theory lecture, students listen not more than 10-12 minutes! Keeping lecture interactive by giving real life examples, case studies, and classroom activities helps students to build the interest and understand the subject better.
- Faculty giving marks to projects without properly examining them!
Many a times it happens that, teacher do not constructively criticize in the student’s projects. Project is something which reflects student’s analytical and research skills which are highly required for any graduate student in the outside world. The quality of project does not only depend upon the amount of work done by students but it also depends upon how teacher mentors it.
Rewarding grade to project is completely different thing. It must be based on certain rubrics. The rubrics are not necessarily defined by faculty but it must be discussed with the students for more transparency. If student knows at what parameter they have to work upon, the quality of the project will automatically increase.
- Not giving enough time.
Not giving enough time to students is another reason why students lose the respect. Teacher must prepare schedule properly and circulate it among students. If students are clear about the teachers schedule then, they will definitely come to you at proper time.
- Behaving over- professionally with the students.
Being professional in school/colleges is always appreciated. It helps students to understand the importance of professionalism when they graduated from the school. However this has another aspect of thinking also. Students sometimes require personal attention for their problems. . !
Problems are not necessarily to be academic or project related. They can be personal or any sort of advice that they are seeking from you. Being over-professionally with them loses the communication between you and students. In such case students do not feel you are the right person to ask for any advice. Building right and healthy communication is a job of a teacher.
- Spoon feeding!
There is absolutely no harm in giving lecture notes and PPT to the students, in fact it helps student to structure the content and study accordingly. It is observed that teacher give all the content which includes how to write the answer, what content teacher wants, how many pages teacher wants the answer etc. by doing this – you are actually decreasing the thinking level of a students. Student fails to think out of box approach in such cases. The role of teacher should be mentor and guide not the spoon feeder
- Ignoring indiscipline in the classroom
Certain amount of discipline is required in the classroom. There will be some mischievous students always in the classroom. Teacher must have a control of the classroom. Students may demand certain things from you for their personal benefits which may not be beneficial for other students. A smart teacher must know how to tackle such situations.
- Favoring personally to few students
After all we are human being; we are always biased towards certain things/people in our life. That is the fact and everybody must accept. No doubt that certain teacher has their favorite students for many reasons. If the student is really working hard, then favoring them is absolutely fine, however quite a few times continually favoring certain students may create negative impression on other students that they are not getting attended by teacher. It results into loss of respect of teacher. It may not be your intention but it is always better to be unbiased in certain activities like assessments, doubt solving etc.
With all these points, understand the fact that: The role of a teacher now a days is that of a mentor! Learning is the sole responsibility of student but creating environment for them is a job of a teacher.
(The author is Chemistry Tutor at PASA)
