By: Brenna Holycross
The teaching style of a teacher is not the only thing that can affect how students learn.
180 days out of the year, high school students are spending five to seven hours with teachers. According to California State University, because students are spending numerous hours with teachers, it’s important to establish a positive relationship. Establishing this relationship can become difficult for teachers since students come from different backgrounds. Nonetheless, whichever relationship a student has with a teacher could affect them academically.
One HHS sophomore, Madison Held, believes that a positive relationship with a teacher does affect her academically. Held stated that she is more motivated in a class where she likes a teacher. If she does not like a teacher, Held does not try as hard.
According to NYU Steinhardt, students who have a positive relationship with their teacher are more motivated to be engaged in school and improve their academics. Michelle Kindt, an HHS foreign language teacher agrees. Kindt explains how if a student has a positive relationship with their teacher, the student’s grades will likely go up.
In an informal poll of 30 HHS students, 67% said they are less likely to do work in a classroom where they have a negative relationship with their teacher, whereas 33% of students said they will do work even in a classroom where they have a negative relationship.
However, there are some ways teachers can create a positive relationship with their students. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), teachers can create a positive relationship not only by interacting with their students in a responsive and respectful manner, but by demonstrating knowledge about individual students’ emotional and academic strengths, offering support, and not showing aggravation.
Held believes one way to create a positive relationship is if a teacher understands and connects to the student. “Most of the time it is because they have kids. They see their kids struggle through school and understand how stressful it can be,” said Held.
Yet, some teachers don’t have this kind of empathy. She explained that some teachers do not understand how much homework a student can end up having, and some teachers do not understand how much extracurriculars students have. If a teacher assigns a lot of homework, it can cause stress on the student. Held said when a teacher causes her a lot of stress, it can cause her to have a negative relationship with the teacher.
Held said, “Some teachers just don’t understand the life of a student.”
Kindt thinks there are a lot of different ways to create a positive relationship. One way is to have a good environment. She believes it starts with the room. Personally, she will try to make her classroom full of bright colors and have items to look at that are aesthetically pleasing. Kindt even tries to make her room have a comfortable feeling.
Along with that, Kindt said teachers should try to make every student feel loved and cared for. To do this, teachers have to get to know their students. Kindt even has the privilege of seeing students for multiple years in a row, and she says this makes a very big difference in how the relationship is built. She stated teachers can get to know their students by asking them how their day was or by trying to know what extracurricular activities students are in to be able to understand and relate to them more. “It can be amazing how much you can learn from a student just by listening to them,” said Kindt.
Kindt explained on the first day of her foreign language methods class, her professor stated that 40% of the students would not become teachers. This is because of the fact that Kindt’s professor believes teachers are born, not made. The professor claimed that if you weren’t a born teacher, she could not teach you how to teach.
Nevertheless, some people think that you can like a class based on the criteria you are learning.
Held believes you don’t have to like what you are learning in the class in order to enjoy the class. It depends on the teacher. Last year, Held loved her math class even though she never liked math before. She enjoyed it more because she had a positive relationship with her teacher. Math even became her favorite class.
Because Held can enjoy a class, despite her disliking the subject, she thinks that if she was fond of all classes she would look forward to coming to school.
According to the informal poll of HHS students, 100% of students surveyed stated they would enjoy school more if they had positive relationships with all of their teachers. They might even attend school more often than they do.
“I feel like at school people walk around and complain about how they like or dislike the next class they are going to,” Held said, “but if you always had a class to look forward to, you would enjoy school a lot more.”
