Teachers in the classroom have
different interpretations for students and the way they behave around students
is mainly based on different expectations that clouds the teacher’s clear judgment
for his or her students, if a student that the teacher “believes” is a smart
student she automatically changes her actions and behaviors around that
student, and the same is for students who are seen as incapable or seem like
they have don’t potential in them. The question is that how did the teacher
spot the brilliance in the first student and what made her believe that he’s
smart, maybe he has nerd glasses, maybe he doesn’t interact with others, maybe
he does all the tasks quicker than his classmates, or maybe he just looks
smart. How is the student in the second case categorized with the low achievers?
Maybe he just doesn’t look that smart, maybe the teacher just doesn’t like him,
maybe his friends don’t like him so they set rumors on him, and maybe he comes
from poor family so he’s not seen as smart. Without us even knowing it we label
students: the pretty, the funny, the smart, the nerd, the stupid one, the quit
one, the trouble maker, but what if our students are all those people together
in a package, we might not like it but it’s our job to remove those labels from
the classroom and categorize our students only according to their efforts, and
only for the purpose of differentiating instructions according to the needs of
each student.
Teachers cannot treat students the same. If we had to treat them the same, then why do we emphasize the importance of knowing that students have different personalities? Why do we spend a long time observing our students' personalities? I do agree that we shouldn't label students as "the nerd", "the trouble maker", "the stupid one." But we do treat our students differently. Picture this scenario: You have two students, one who always forgets to do his homework and one who has forgotten to do it for the first time since the beginning of the year. Is it fair to treat the students the same in this case? Definitely not!
ReplyDeleteOther cases are the students who abide by the rules, so teachers find that they can joke with them more than students who don't take matters seriously.
So teachers should not label students using those harsh phrases but treatment in CERTAIN cases will differ.
I have a variety of students in my classroom and it took me a while to understand their interests and needs. There is the "Boss" who usually makes fun of his friends and controls the ongoing of games and behaviors in the classroom. You have the "Popular" girl who is admired by most of the students and other girls would die to win her friendship. There is the clown of the classroom who serves the boss and makes his friends laugh. There are the moderate students who act according to the general atmosphere of the classroom. Many other kinds of students are available in one classroom and what differs is the way we treat each student.
ReplyDeleteWe have a variety of students, teachers should understand each student and treat him according to his interest, needs and personality. I think that each student has something that differentiate him from others and the teachers responsibility is to help students make use of their abilities from positive sides.
ReplyDelete