Gazi Md. Abdur Rashid :
Traditionally teacher-student relationships were based on thinking that the teachers have the basic authority and know what is best for the students; students were viewed as inactive recipients of knowledge who always say yes to academic demands without questioning. Information technology with changing time has brought a more relaxed atmosphere among the students. The ‘Guru-Shishya’ authoritarianism is gone. The fear factor is missing. Students want their holistic development. That’s why the teacher’s role has become more important.
Teachers are considered to hold a unique position of trust, care and authority due to their influence on children and young people through education and learning. The result is an inherent power imbalance between teachers and students, which creates an expectation that teachers uphold high standards of integrity, accountability and professionalism. Schools and their teachers have a duty to exercise reasonable care to protect students from reasonably foreseeable risks of harm whilst involved in school activities. A teacher should shift from the old traditional method of teaching to new technology-based method. Teachers, who care for students, should establish a cordial relation with them. It will motivate them and be more successful in learning their contents. Having a positive teacher student relationship can markedly influence the development of ‘considerate’ behaviours such as cooperation and altruism, as well as significantly reduce problem classroom behaviours such as aggression and oppositional behaviour.
Educational and school policies should take this into consideration when supporting teachers in fostering their relationships with students. It is how the student perceives the relationship that is most important for behavior. Students who saw themselves as having a more positive relationship with their teacher engaged in fewer aggressive behaviours right up to age 16. Most adults remember some teachers that they admired and that fit their learning needs, and others that they felt hard done-by. This is not necessarily only because they have more or less supportive teachers. Each child will respond differently to a teacher’s style and personality. Once a child develops an impression of a teacher, one way or the other, it can have significant long-term effects on their behaviour. Ideally, building healthy and supportive teacher-student relationships would become part of the curriculum in teacher training and intervention programmes as a way of improving adolescent well-being.
How can teachers improve their relationships with students?
Teachers who cultivate empathy for and with their students are able to manage students’ behaviour and academic engagement better. Trying to suppress biases about students can sometimes make them worse, but practicing perspective-taking-actively imagining how a student might perceive or be affected by a situation-can reduce bias and deepen teacher-student relationships.
o Talk to students to understand differences in their perceptions and expectations in class.
o Teach and model perspective-taking for students in class.
o Speaking with students privately about their behavior in order to avoid embarrassment.
o Acknowledging students’ feelings in order to understand the cause of their behaviour.
o Reviewing school policy or classroom guidelines so that students are aware of the rules.
o Following up discussion with immediate consequences for students that misbehave.
o Checking on students after they have been disciplined for their actions.
o Teachers can’t be friends with kids, but they can connect through common interests.
Positive and healthy relationships between teachers and students can be extremely beneficial at all levels of an educational establishment, within the classroom and across the school environment as a whole. From improved self-esteem to increased engagement, there are a number of benefits of establishing positive student-teacher relationships between educators and pupils of all ages. Educators and students can experience these benefits with the use of methods that include communicating positive expectations, demonstrating caring, and developing classroom pride. As positive student-teacher relationships continue to develop, the long-lasting effects benefit not only students and teachers but parents and administrators as well.
How can relationships with students support teacher quality?
The students met regularly with the teacher to give feedback about their communication skills and engagement in the classroom, and to brainstorm better ways to reach dropout to students. Teachers and education administrators found that going through the training gave students better understanding of the teachers’ roles. Teachers should “developed deeper relationships with students, interacted with students in a more positive way during class, communicated information assignments to students more clearly, generated better questions to stimulate student voice during participated teaching learning environment, and created more collaborative learning environments for students.” Students aren’t the only ones that benefit from healthy student-teacher relationships. One primary benefit for the educator is that, as teachers work strategically to develop these relationships, they improve their interpersonal and professional skills as well. Teaching is a profession that requires the ability to clearly communicate information even during stress-inducing scenarios. It is important for teachers to find ways to successfully manage stress, in order to express concepts and avoid frustration. For some educators, improving their interpersonal communication skills helps to reduce stress and develop positive student-teacher relationships, in addition to positive relationships with parents and co-workers. An added benefit of improved interpersonal skills includes personal and professional growth, which may be positively reflected in an educator’s level of communication with students and the amount of student engagement that occurs as a result of it. Clearly, there are many significant benefits of positive student-teacher relationships.
When students feel a sense of classroom pride and teachers are able to effectively communicate with their class, engagement occurs. A classroom in which students and teachers can focus on education rather than disturbances is one in which they both can thrive. People sometimes mistake a kind of casual familiarity and friendliness for the promotion of really deep relationships that are about a child’s potential, their interests, their strengths, and weaknesses. Strong teacher-student relationships were associated in both the short- and long-term with improvements on practically every measure schools care about: higher student academic engagement, attendance, grades, fewer disruptive behaviours and suspensions, and lower school dropout rates. Those effects were strong even after controlling for differences in students’ individual, family, and school backgrounds.
(Gazi Md. Abdur Rashid, Research Officer, District Education Office (Secondary, Munshiganj)
