{"id":21993,"date":"2017-01-12T12:21:23","date_gmt":"2017-01-12T20:21:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/?p=21993"},"modified":"2017-01-12T12:21:23","modified_gmt":"2017-01-12T20:21:23","slug":"are-students-really-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/are-students-really-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"Are students really “friends?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I hear teachers calling their students \u201cfriends\u201d quite commonly these days.\u00a0 While the use of the term \u201cfriends\u201d is certainly harmless enough, it reminds me that there are extremely important distinctions between the way a person should treat friends and the way a teacher should treat students.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to stop teachers from calling their students \u201cfriends\u201d but I do think it is critical for teachers to know why and how they should not<\/strong> <\/span>treat their students as friends.<\/p>\n

The main reason that teachers should not treat students as friends concerns expectations.\u00a0 With friends you\u2019re nice to them and hope that makes them like you.\u00a0 Then if they like you, they will be considerate of your feelings and treat you well.\u00a0 Many beginning teachers expect that a classroom of students will be like a room full of friends.\u00a0 If you are unfailingly nice to them, they will in turn be considerate of you and attempt to acquiesce to your wishes.\u00a0 Unfortunately, this does not work.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Primarily because a teacher has to ask students to do things they\u2019d rather not do and has to keep their attention on things to which they\u2019d rather not pay attention.\u00a0 In short, teachers are authority figures rather than friends.\u00a0 Friends can get up and leave when they aren\u2019t interested in what you\u2019re doing, but students are required to stay.\u00a0 Therefore teachers must treat students differently than they treat friends.<\/p>\n

The first way that treating friends and students should be different concerns how a teacher reacts to student academic errors.\u00a0 When a student answers a question incorrectly it shows they have a misunderstanding.\u00a0 For example, a student says that the sun orbits around the earth.\u00a0 That misunderstanding needs to be corrected to set the student \u201cstraight.\u201d\u00a0 A teacher who allows a student to continue with a misunderstanding is doing that student a disservice.\u00a0 Errors should be corrected immediately, in a nice way, but as clearly as possible.\u00a0 For example, the teacher says that although it appears as if the sun rotates around the earth, actually the earth orbits around the sun.\u00a0 A good teacher may even take the opportunity to model how a spinning globe creates the illusion that the distant sun is going around us.\u00a0 The student should be taught\/told the correct understanding in as unequivocal a manner as possible and the teacher needs to check to be sure that the student learned the correct information both immediately after the correction and a few minutes later to see that the correct answer is retained.<\/p>\n

When a friend makes a factual error, it is socially expected that you will not make a big deal of it.\u00a0 It is socially inept to clearly and loudly correct errors of fact among friends.\u00a0 At best one can simply not confirm an incorrect statement, but pointing it out as incorrect is just rude.\u00a0 Teachers who treat their students as friends will make light of or gloss over errors, and they fail to teach students as a result.<\/p>\n

Another way treating friends and students should be different concerns how a teacher reacts to student behavior.\u00a0 Teachers need to learn to \u201ccatch \u2018em being good.\u201d\u00a0 Teachers should look for students who are doing the right thing and should praise\/recognize them by name, make eye contact and name the behavior they are doing that is exemplary.\u00a0 \u201cAlan has his desk clear, his textbook out and he\u2019s ready to start learning.\u00a0 He\u2019s looking ready for college.\u201d\u00a0 Praising and recognizing appropriate behavior in the classroom helps prompt other students towards what they should be doing as well as reinforcing Alan.\u00a0 It sends the signal of the behaviors the teacher values in the classroom and teaches students what\u2019s expected.\u00a0 At the same time the teacher should deliberately not give any attention to students who are not doing the right thing, who have not gotten ready to start.<\/p>\n

With friends we are expected to give non-contingent attention.\u00a0 We give them love and attention because of who they are, not based on how they behave.\u00a0 One doesn\u2019t turn away from a friend and deliberately pay attention and begin talking to someone across the room because you approve of their behavior more.\u00a0 If you did that it would be too rude to your friend and it might hurt your friendship.\u00a0 Instead, if your friend misbehaved at a party you would begin by attending to your friend, to see what\u2019s wrong, or find out what you can do for them.\u00a0 That attention reinforces your friendship and proves you\u2019re a good friend.\u00a0 In a classroom, teachers who respond to misbehavior as they would to a friend end up reinforcing the inappropriate behavior and they get a lot more misbehavior from all of their students.<\/p>\n

There is a role for non-contingent reinforcement of students.\u00a0 They need to know that the teacher cares about them as people.\u00a0 The time for that is at neutral times when the student is not misbehaving, such as when entering the classroom, out on the school grounds not during class, or even when circulating the room.\u00a0 Giving appropriate and friendly social attention to the student at times when they aren\u2019t in crisis or off-task helps create good relationships within the classroom and is valuable.\u00a0 In that circumstance \u201cfriends\u201d is just what is wanted.<\/p>\n

A third and final way that teachers should not treat students as friends is when students break the rules.\u00a0 To establish order in a classroom there needs to be rules and consequences for rule-breaking.\u00a0 Consequences need not be major or draconian, but they do need to be applied consistently.\u00a0 If a teacher says, \u201cWait to be called on before you speak,\u201d the teacher needs to not answer or engage with students who call out without raising their hand and waiting.\u00a0 The teacher should ignore the student calling out and call on someone who raised their hand.\u00a0 That needs to be consistently applied, no matter who the student is who calls out.\u00a0 Students only learn to follow the rules when the consequences are consistent.<\/p>\n

I wouldn\u2019t recommend treating friends in this manner.\u00a0 If friends blurt out and interrupt your turn speaking, we generally tolerate it.\u00a0 When a friend breaks a rule, we don\u2019t apply consequences.\u00a0 We might complain to them.\u00a0 We hope that our friendship will cause them to re-examine their behavior, but we\u2019d rather \u201cask\u201d them not to do it than apply swift consequences.\u00a0 That is because we are ultimately not authority figures with our friends.\u00a0 But teachers are authority figures and they therefore have to treat their students differently than they would treat their friends.\u00a0 As long as teachers understand this, they can certainly call their students \u201cfriends.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I hear teachers calling their students \u201cfriends\u201d quite commonly these days.\u00a0 While the use of the term \u201cfriends\u201d is certainly harmless enough, it reminds me that there are extremely important distinctions between the way a person should treat friends and the way a teacher should treat students.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to stop teachers from calling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":837,"featured_media":21994,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0},"categories":[46],"tags":[43,38],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21993"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/837"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21993"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21995,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21993\/revisions\/21995"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}