Disrespect and Engagement

“I wish I could just shut the door five minutes after class starts” - Uncle P

Being Late

In some situations, it’s okay to be late. For example, don’t be early to the party while the hosts are still preparing.

However, when dealing with more serious occasions, like meetings with teachers or project members, being late is just downright disrespectful because it demonstrates apathy for both the time and goals of other people.

Late to Class

As someone who has taught online classes, I can certainly sympathize with teachers when they get irritated by students who show up late.

It really is a paradox of teaching; on one hand, teachers don’t want students to miss part of a lesson, but on the other, it is important for them to learn a different lesson: one of being on time.

Since teachers don’t get paid to teach the second lesson but do for the first, the general sequence is just to waste time talking about something unrelated to class and then yell at the kids that come in late afterward.

However, there is a fatal flaw with this strategy: most people do not learn from criticism, and certainly not from the ones they have heard and intentionally ignored for hundreds of repetitions.

This behavior is years and years of habit built up by the luck of never having to face a real-life situation. As I learned from my mom when I was learning ice skating when I was 8, it is easier to fall down as a child than as an adult.

Perhaps this principle should be tacked onto Newton’s maxim: “What grows up, must fall down.”

The Anger

Of course, it is a horrible idea to get mad because it demonstrates weakness controlling one’s emotions

Every horrible impression I have had of a teacher has occurred because of a common pattern: they don’t control the classroom over the first days of meeting the new students, they don’t notice that behavior gets worse progressively, and then comes a breaking point at which they lash out against the students.

Of course, in my mind, these teachers are not defined by these moments, I prefer to see people as a blend of all their actions, like in Fahrenheit 451.

After all, being a teacher is one of the hardest jobs in the world, a profession as old as wisdom and knowledge themselves. It’s about a mastery of one’s emotions and the ability to respond to crises instantly. I intentionally use the word, “crises,” because every single misstep within the classroom turns into a disaster without.

Freshmen can be annoying, but every challenge can be resolved if calmness and respect is retained. Respect is demonstrated through calmness because it indicates that you believe that the student can change, and that as a team, it is possible to improve.

Obligations

Do I want to be a teacher? Well, a week after I started helping out in a freshman math class, I thought about what kind of class I would want to teach if I were a teacher.

My first thought was, “If I just teach higher-level classes, then I won’t have to deal with the students that just mess around and/or don’t care.” I didn’t think about it much until a week later, when I changed my mind.

If I teach an advanced class, which means the students there are already capable of learning at a higher rate, then anyone else who knew the material could just come in and replace me. I could even be absent for the whole year and just tell them to do the Khan Academy or AP Classroom problems and lessons for the subject and there would still be a B+ average. Besides, I could not be 100 percent engaged in my job if I knew that.

So, avoiding the students who need more assistance seems like running away from a problem because I don’t know the solution, which is not the right thing to do if I am capable of finding a solution.