A teacher
friend was running his first lesson with a new class and, while he was going through
some organisational things, a student said „Shouldn’t you introduce yourself
first?!”
This sounds
vastly inappropriate to me. First, even if it was a breach of good manners not
to introduce yourself to a new class, this remark is plain rude and not the way
to correct anyone’s mistake (whoever this person is). Second, what has happened
to respect and trust that we owe people who are supposed to teach us? The
teacher may later turn out to be incompetent or unfair and then we can treat
them accordingly. But during our first encounter the natural attitude should be
positive expectations, not aggression.
This
incident is also one of many examples of the general collapse of authorities. We are told that we are all
experts and we do not need to respect and rely on other people’s knowledge and
opinions. Even if these people have spent their entire lives studying an area
of knowledge. For example, against the unanimous opinion of the medical
community, we know better that vaccines can hurt our children even if this
claim is based on some anecdotal evidence and a rigged study whose author admitted
he had faked the results and was sentenced by a UK court.
That is what also concerns me A lot. Do these people refusing vaccines or saying that Earth is flat are just uneducated, naive or they just have fun just arguing with others? I don't really know but every option is possible
ReplyDeleteNo respect for older people from a teenager might have roots in the way this person was raised by her/his parents. That's my first thought and there probably are more reasons. Nonetheless I consider it a big problem.
ReplyDeleteIn most cases lack of respect for authorities is a consequence of bad manners. Moreover, some parents don't accept authority of the teacher over their child. If conflict happens, parents will take side of their "innocent" child. As a result, such a child think that He/She has "right" to disrespect.
ReplyDeleteRespect for authorities is really important, to label relationship which student and teacher should have. The worst thing is, that i see lack of respect even among elementary students. Even if i scold my sister after hearing one of her „funny” stories about some teacher, my father will come and laugh about it. Parents have big influence on children and how they behave. It’s more common now to hear critic and comments about school in home.
ReplyDeleteI guess such behaviour might be a consequence of quite widespread among parents mindset, that their children are the only ones worthy listening to, and they would never lie to them to cover their own mistakes or wrongdoings. Thus such parents take the side of their child and the teacher isn't the one who they rely on. This gives children the example to follow, which is lack of respect towards teacher, somebody older etc...
ReplyDelete