I’m just kind of curious as to how other people feel about the relationship that should exist between a teacher and a student. I know that in my experience in high school, the classes where I felt like a friend to the teacher were the classes I was most comfortable in and was more interested in what the teacher had to say. The only problems that arise from this is that there is a line between a teacher and a student that varies from student to student and teacher to teach that exists. Also its difficult maybe impossible to act as a friend toward all the students in a class and the teacher may be seen as having favorites.
I think the students should choose their level of involvement, and that the teacher should make sure that the option is there. Students should be able to trust teachers, if something is wrong with their home and they aren’t comfortable to talk to a teacher because of the authorities boundary that is usually there, then that student could have a lot of difficulties.
Also I think that from a critical pedagogy standpoint, a conversation is easier among friends. So should we as teachers be conscience of the relationships and bonds we form with our students? As I said earlier I’m just curious as to where other people stand on this.
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"I know that in my experience in high school, the classes where I felt like a friend to the teacher were the classes I was most comfortable in and was more interested in what the teacher had to say." In response, I think for the majority of the time I agree with you. I had an English teacher four years ago who grew extremely interested in the fact that a fellow classmate and myself were growing distant in the political race between Bush and Kerry. We managed to have some mini debates during the issues, but her compassion to stop teaching about English for a second and take interest into what we were thinking about really helped us to open up. Overall, that class was less stringent to get work accopmlished and spent more time addressing the quality of the work..why we thought the things we thought, narrowing details and figuring us out as humans for the sake of being a human, instead of aiming to get another grade in the book.
To speak from a "far left" point of view (so to speak), my chorus teacher was even more generous with her time, letting us stay in her room after hours, use her spacious back closet as a locker for advanced chorus members, we would eat lunch with her in her room no matter which lunch period we had, heck my friends and I even made a tradition to go to her house each thanksgiving and "test" all of her cakes and pies (she is a mighty fine italian cook). But we all knew if we missed a class because of her, we were done. She was also the only teacher I ever served a detention for. Not once but twice. And if we skipped her class for any reason, you knew you were going to hear about it the next day. We were always allowed to come to her with problems and even if we didn't, she found out anyway. Even so in a sense she was a role model. Not for her gossiping I-am-the -queen-and-you-will-respect-me-for -who-I-am self, but for the way she demanded the respect and achieved it in a classroom that was filled with chaos.
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