And, further, if they feel you like them, they will probably also like you.
But for beginning young teachers the biggest concern often is getting respect.
My mom said that her first principal said teachers shouldn't smile before Christmas break.
This seems very American to me. As with 2, the general rule in Europe if not elsewhere is to be a total hardass at first, and then after your students respect is assured, you gradually let your facade crack a little and your humanity show through. The last half is optional, of course.
2: That's funny and kind of awful.
Please tell me she wasn't teaching first graders.
I thought you were supposed to shiv one of your students on the first day. That way, they won't fuck with you.
4: Grade school, but I couldn't say if it was first graders or not.
This seems very American to me.
I think it's best with students who are very scared to be there, and at high risk for disengaging and dropping out. (Which is probably over 50% of new college students in the US.)
I'm going to assert that this is inverted: it's more important on the first day for the student to feel like you like them.
Wrong.
OT: If you're in the mood for reading a great blog fight, the one between Paul Campos and Brian Leiter over the "Law School Scam" blog is excellent. My own view is that I'd like both sides to lose, but would like Leiter's to lose more, but there's really some great nasty back and forth. Start here and work back.
I think this is very important advice. Every time I've seen a colleague 'fail' in a classroom (ie, many disengaged students, extreme behavioral problems, etc) it's been those that don't really like students and who attempt the 'I'm a hard-ass, give me respect' stance but can't actually manage to command the respect.
5: Maybe at a place like Deep Springs.
[ducks, runs off]
My own view is that I'd like both sides to lose, but would like Leiter's to lose more
I'm not familiar with Leiter but man alive does Campos irritate me. His "programs against childhood obesity is like trying to cure homosexuality" made me want to beat him with a genetics textbook.
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Thank God the DOJ is so focused and aggressive on cases which directly impact the welfare of the citizens of the United States.
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Friggen justice department. I like shady offshore pharmacies. If they are going to go after Google for their ads, they should go after all the shady malware download sites that pop up whenever you do a search for something like "driver error" or "dll". That's Google making a profit off of facilitating people getting their computer hacked.
"programs against childhood obesity is like trying to cure homosexuality"
More like trying to cure diabetes, I'd think.
@9
It's a shame that Campos is such as ass, because he's got an important point about jobs and tuition in the law market.
15: My sister worked for a company that tried that, but they went broke.
I've generally been of the philosophy that you get respect by giving respect. If I'm right, I'm probably not giving enough respect.
Every time I've seen a colleague 'fail' in a classroom (ie, many disengaged students, extreme behavioral problems, etc) it's been those that don't really like students and who attempt the 'I'm a hard-ass, give me respect' stance but can't actually manage to command the respect.
The one time a teacher "failed" in one of my college courses was in an upper-level engineering class. The teacher was a visiting prof who had great credentials and engineering experience but didn't know how to teach. He was pleasant but wasn't well organized, wasn't rigorous, and told war stories rather than leading us through the syllabus. The students' enthusiasm and interest in the course - an elective - disappeared. The department head got wind of it, consulted quietly with a few of the students, and got the teacher to shape up. Of course, human nature being what it is, we then resented the teacher for changing on us. The whole experience illustrated how bad a clueless teacher really could be. And it was the one instance that I saw during undergrad of a department head actually intervening (very delicately) in the teaching of a course.
19: Yeah, I think that can be a real problem with easy-going, want-to-be-liked teachers, which I think is where I fall in the spectrum. I'm paranoid of my students thinking I'm too easy-going, myself. And a class like you describe is immensely frustrating - I've had a similar one. The situations I was referring to above are "worse" in my mind, as a teacher, though - ones where half the class failed, stopped attending, or started outright rebelling and circumventing the teacher.
I've had a number of European exchange students tell me they vastly preferred the American system, and not because it was necessarily easier, but because they felt that they could actually ask questions and talk to professors outside of class.
I don't get 11. Is the idea that all-male environment = prison?
23: I was just trying to think of a secluded school,* but didn't want to name any boarding schools. It hadn't occurred to me that Deep Springs is all male. I mean, I knew that, but it wasn't what I was thinking of.
*But then I remembered that someone here went there. So I added the [ducks] part.
Yeah, it turns out that what students really like is predictability, so easygoingness is seen as arbitrary.
If I read Brian Leiter often enough, he could talk me out of liberalism and into becoming of those libertarian Christiian fundamentalists.
Another theory of the first day of class:
My classes commenced on the seventh of September, a tall blue day as crisp as the white starched blouses of the coeds who filed into my classroom and nervously took their seats. Standing behind the lectern at eight o'clock sharp, suit fresh-pressed and chin scraped clean, I felt my nostrils flare like a stud's at the nubby tight sex of them, flustered and pink-scrubbed, giggling and moist; my thighs flexed, and I yawned ferociously. The boys, too, lean and green, smooth-chinned and resilient, shivered and stretched at the mere nearness of young breasts and buttocks as hard as new pears. In a classroom on the first day of a new term the air's electric with sex like ozone after a summer storm, and all sensed it, if all couldn't name it: the rubby sweet friskies twitched in their seats and tugged their skirts down dimpled white knees; the springy fresh men flexed and slouched, passed quick hands over crew cuts; I folded arms and tightened hams, and leaning against the desk, let its edge press calmingly against my trouser fly like a steadying hand. Early blue morning is an erotic time, the commencement of school terms an erotic season; little's to be done but nod to Freud on such a day.
We looked one another over appraisingly. What I said, with professorial succinctness, was: "My name's Jacob Horner; my office is in Room Twenty-seven, around the corner. There's a list of my office hours on the door." I assigned texts and described the course; that was all, and that was enough. My air of scholarly competence, theirs of studious attention (they wrote my name and office number as frowningly as if I'd pronounced the Key to the Mystery) were so clearly feigned, we were all so conscious of playing school, that to attempt a lesson would have been preposterous. Why, confronted with that battery of eager bosoms and delicious behinds, a man cupped his hands in spite of himself; the urge to drop the ceremonious game and leap those fine girls on the spot was simply terrific. The national consternation, if on some September morn every young college instructor in the land cried out what was on his mind -- "To hell with this nonsense, men: let's take 'em!" -- a soothing speculation!-- John Barth The End of the Road.