Showing Students You Care

Since last week, I’ve been kind of thinking a lot about what Ms. G, our guest English teacher said about helping that student start to enjoy reading and getting him to the point where he finished an entire book from start to finish—something he had never done before. This point also brought up how a little one on one time and making the effort to get to know your students can really be beneficial and effective. I also thought what Principal JL said about sympathy vs. empathy was really important as well.

 I think making an effort to get to know your students, work with them, help them, and show them you care and genuinely want them to succeed is really beneficial for the students. Like Ms. G said, that particular student she dealt with did not like or want to read, but once she took the time to work with him and give him that bit of extra attention that he needed, he had picked out a book from the library and finished it. She showed him that she cared and when students can see and realize that teachers are on their side, I believe they feel more motivated. If a teacher doesn’t make it clear that they care, or they get frustrated with students who may be acting up, not showing an interest in material and/or performing poorly in class, it only makes the student feel worse about him or herself. Getting frustrated or trying every professional method you can think of isn’t going to help the student. While professional techniques do help, part of teaching is getting to know the students in your class, being patient and kind, showing them you care, being understanding and figuring out the best way to help them learn and believe that they can learn.

 And then there’s the balance between being sympathetic and empathetic. Like Principal JL said, you want to have empathy towards your students, which means being able to understand and acknowledge how they might be feeling, but you don’t want to get to the point where you feel bad for them, so you make things easier or don’t establish expectations. You want to have expectations and standards for them and you want them to succeed. You don’t want to ignore whatever issues they may have, but you want them to be able to move forward and rise above them. I think this also relates back to showing students you care. I feel as if acknowledging whatever a student is going through, but also giving them the attention they need and helping them meet the expectations laid out for them is showing you care, not feeling sorry for them and letting them slack off or making work easier. You have to believe in the students and also show them that you believe in them. 

Typing this up also reminded me of a TV show that further illustrates this point. I actually watched the show on YouTube over the summer for fun and I love that I’m actually applying it to school. The show is an Australian mockumentary called Summer Heights High and while a lot of it is supposed to be comedic, I think the story of Jonah, one of the students, contains a lot of seriousness and fits perfectly with some of the things we’ve discussed. In the show, Jonah is a Year 8 student who came to Australia from Tonga when he was three. He has four siblings and was raised by his father after his mother died when he was young. He lives with his four siblings, his father, two cousins and an aunt. He struggles in school, specifically in reading, so he goes to a remedial reading class with Ms. Palmer, who he actually enjoys. When we see her interacting with Jonah, she is always kind, polite and patient with him and it is clear that she believes in him and wants him to do well. She truly wants him to learn to read. And while Jonah is in her class, he wants to learn how to read. He actually states at one point that maybe someday he’ll be able to read “Harry Potter in a day.” On the contrary, his English teacher, Ms. Wheatley, gets frustrated with him. It seems as if she is shouting at him nearly every day and even throwing his books on the ground as she kicks him out of class. The contrast between the behavior of these two teachers and Jonah’s behavior as a result is very interesting and shows the differences in students depending on how a teacher treats them. Jonah wanted to improve in Ms. Palmer’s class because she cared about him. She believed he could learn how to read and she made the effort to help him and care about him. Jonah even stated that Ms. Palmer appreciated him. She gives him appropriate work to do and works with him so that he'll be able to read on story day at the end of the term. On the occasions he does act up, she stays calm and gets him back on track. Ms. Wheatley, on the other hand, just screams at Jonah and gets frustrated. She doesn't make an effort to talk to him or get to know him and she doesn't make him feel as if he could do any better or improve. Here is the link to the final scene of Summer Heights High, which I think sums up the difference between Ms. Wheatley and Ms. Palmer pretty well: Summer Heights High.