Teachers and the Impact they have on Students

As an educator I try to listen to students from ``nothing``, meaning no pre-concieved notion of their ability. However, having said that, this only lasts for a while, becuase students start to display their talents. As a teacher I want to throw my questions to those who can answer them, so I have to gain knowledge of their level and pitch my questions within their reach. Now in my interaction with students I am always positive and encouraging, but somewhat surprising is the result that some students do not like positive and encouraging. As far as the self-fulfilling prophacy is concerned, it lies more so with the student than with the teacher. Some students do not believe that they are capable and no matter how much I try to persuade them, their attitude remains the same.
Cheers,

Call me old-fashioned. I think comments on articles should be related to the article in question. I don`t see a connection between ``things that distract students`` and ``the impact of teacher attitude on student performance.``

Ms. Ahsan,

It`s a pleasure to find someone else who reads about the sociology of education. While much of your article is well-taken, there are a few points I`d like to make.

1) ``the predictions of a teacher about the ability of the student to attain educational achievements always prove to be true.`` This is something of an over-statement. Certainly, teacher predictions have an impact of student achievement, but this impact is by no means absolute. There ARE students, albeit a minority, who surprise teachers. So, your professor would have been more accurate had s/he said ``If a teacher expects a student to fail, he is highly unlikely to pass.`` The field of education seems to encourage broad generalizations in a way that few other disciplines do. It`s important that we guard against this tendency, rather than give in to it.

2) ``[the teacher`s]...students will definitely excel in something or the other, if he/she makes them believe in themselves enough.`` This statement is true by definition. If a student believes in her/himself enough to excel, s/he will excel. But of course. The question is, can _teacher expectation_ cause EVERY student to believe in her/himself enough to excel? This question is actually impossible to answer as it stands. Should we modify it to ask whether a teacher can even cause MOST students to believe in themselves to excel, the answer is still unclear. Every good teacher knows that it is possible to get some students to excel simply by a) keeping high expectations, b) communicating those high expecations to students, c) offering encouragement when expecations are met, and d) offering constructive feedback when they are not.

These basic principles work successfully with many students. It would be interesting to review the research literature on how generalized the effect of teacher expectations is.

3) With reference to the story of the teacher who ``teaches Mathematics and Science in a private school``, my question is, how is this incident relevant to the issue of teacher expecation?

4) While ``Student A,`` who is ``not good in English,`` MAY not be a ``below average student in every subject taught in English,`` the chances are that his proficiency in any subject that requires fluent expression (e.g. history) or comprehension of complex texts (e.g. biology or economics) will suffer. While I agree that the correct response to this weakness is to provide support and encouragement for overcoming the challenge, I think you cloud that argument with the somewhat tangential point that this student might do very well in another subject. A more relevant comment on high ability in another subject might be be that the teacher should try to improve the student`s English THROUGH the subject that the students excels at.

5) Finally, the sentence ``prophesising should definitely be the result of close interaction and not the other way around`` is less than clear. Do you REALLY mean that ``prophesising should not cause close interaction`` (which is what ``the other way around`` would end up being)? And throughout your article, you`ve been arguing that teachers should always prophesize positively. If close interaction leads a teacher to the conclusion that the student is less-than-capable, should s/he then prophesize accordingly? Somehow, I don`t think that`s what you meant...

Regards,
Aisha

Hafsa Ahsan

Your work is appriciated, reallly nice work but the basic problem is teachers nowadays are not wht they used to be, when ever i think of teachers i think of my fav old english movies ``To Sir, with love``, this movie had shown wht a teachers should be.

I am just about to start teacher training in secondary maths on monday next week. have spent this week observing...i think it is a fantastic thing to do...

will write more on the article later...

I was just looking for this kind of article :)

To me teaching and cultivating young minds is the noblest profession of all. I must qualify that, however: the ``teaching`` must be on the path of objectivity and enlightenment. There are no dumb students, only dumb teachers.

Slmz Hafsa,

I applaud your work as an excellent observation and analysis. Positive feedback and constructive criticism should be the hallmarks of education. Especially in Pakistan, the latti (stick) teaching protocol needs to be disengaged and rather this positive approach should be adopted and implemented.

In my personal experience and from feedback that I have had from a number of students (this is not statistically proven), friends, intergender relationships, unabeted political activism, etc. often serve to distract and negatively impact constructive studying. In my opinion, teachers should take on this role to educate their pupils early in the course of their academic career regarding the pros and cons of these issues. Our schools are co-ed and I have nothing against that, however, distractions of one form of another only serve to the detriment of the student. A healthy learning environment is a must.

You would be amazed to know, that in the US and the state of NJ in particular, our office recently conducted sexual discrimination training for all of its employees in accordance with newly drafted state government regulations. The most important lesson educated during this training session was that distractions of any kind involving interaction between the genders or within (male to male, female to female) ie, by telling a joke, making facial gestures, touchs, words, etc can not only be construed as harrasment by the directly involved, but also by any third party individual not involved. Such cases often end up in court here. Another surprising fact is that, the only permissible human to human touch is a hand shake, nothing else. Even complimenting a coworker on their dress can be construed as harrasment. In many companies, even dating a coworker has been explicitly prohibited. Basically, I was shocked to hear all of this, especially since these regulations conform pretty much to islamic teachings.

The bottom line of the training session was that your work place should be a place where you come to work, and get paid for the hours that you put in, and any external distractions should be immediately taken notice of and dealt with. Therefore, our schools should be institutions of learning free from distractions. Socializing, friendships, relationships, etc should be limited to the extent that they don`t negatively impact one`s education. The only way to impart this message to students is through education itself. Offcourse this is not an absolute target, but increased awareness and concern can result in benefits down the road.

Please provide feedback and once again, great job Hafsa, :)
Thanks

Shabber