The kind of teacher I’d rather be

WOULD I like my students to like me? Of course, I would. However, I know as an adult in my classroom, there will be times that I make students (and potentially their parents) angry and it’s all right with me.

Teaching is not a popularity contest; it is not my job to be popular. I am not there to make friends with my students. I am there to teach them and to be a positive adult in their life. Besides, it’s really impossible to make everybody like you.

I have initiated almost 20 parent conferences concerning misbehavior of my students from August to January this school year. I can feel that some of my misbehaving students don’t like me but in my opinion, it is more important for my students to respect me. They may not always like my rules or consequences, but they also need to understand that rules and consequences are in place for a reason.

Students usually only like teachers who don’t reprimand them. These students need to understand that teachers who try to correct misbehavior are the ones who really care about them. When teachers censure or chastise a student for doing bad it means that he/she’s concerned and he/she wants the student to do well. I believe that you do not have to give up classroom rules or expectations in order to be a caring teacher.

Everyone wants to be liked by the people around them. As a teacher, I want my students to like me because students who like their teachers tend to work harder for them and therefore learn more. That being said, however, if a student doesn't like me, I am not going to bend over backwards to make sure that he does. If I am being fair and firm and the student has a problem with that, it's his problem, not mine. I will not change my standards to accommodate him. So while I hope the student likes me and I'll work on our relationship, I will not compromise my high expectations. If they couldn't like me, I would settle for being able to help them learn like that.

I would rather be a teacher who is not liked but is actually teaching than be a teacher whose only interest is to be "a buddy" with his/her students and not take into consideration that he/she isn’t teaching the class anything.