What to do When Students Don't Like You
Personality
As I mentioned in my previous post, most
teachers are women (1) and most women score high on trait agreeableness and
neuroticism in the big five personality traits (2). While there are clearly
some exceptions to this trend, it isn’t to be dismissed. People who are high in
agreeableness tend to avoid conflict, which can be useful if the conflict can
be overlooked and harmful if the conflict shouldn’t be overlooked. People who
are high in neuroticism have higher levels of negative emotion, i.e. they are
worriers. Again this can be useful because some level of caution is prudent,
but also can be harmful if you worry unnecessarily. Last week I took a look
into what this means for conflict between coworkers and how to deal with that,
especially for teachers. This week I am looking at what this means for teacher
student relationships.
My Situation
For example, I had a long term substitute
position, while a teacher is out on maternity leave. The teacher I was in for
is beloved by many of her students and it is inspiring to see just how much a
teacher’s dedication and enthusiasm can actually effect students. On the other
hand, it made my job much more difficult in some key ways. Some students loved
this teacher so much, that before I even walked into the classroom I was doing
something wrong. I wasn’t their beloved teacher. I was someone else. Simply by
that fact, I was doing something horribly wrong in their eyes. With that kind
of up front opposition some classes that are the beloved teacher’s
“well-behaved” classes had become nightmarish classes for me.
What to Do
I am high in agreeableness and neuroticism. So
my students not liking me was absolutely devastating at first. Not every day
was terrible, but it was really discouraging for me to come in try so hard and
then have students dislike me no matter what I did. What do you do in this
situation? Well if you’re looking for some magic make-students-like-you potion,
stop looking now because I don’t have it. What I do have is the advice my
professors told me in college that particularly came in handy when I was faced
with these difficult classes: you’re not there to be their friend; they have
plenty of friends.
What It Means
When I first heard this advice, I thought it
was very cynical and not representative of students. Some students really
struggle making friends, but what I eventually realized is students don’t need
teachers as their friends. Yes, we can be friendly and build good relationships
with students, but even the students that don’t have any friends don’t need a
teacher as their friend. They need to make friends among their peers and having
a teacher as a friend only delays this struggle. On the other hand, I was not
there to be these students friends at the long term substitute position. I was
there to teach them and they didn’t have to like me for me to be able to teach
them.
Another Point
My boyfriend also had some good insight he
reminded me that often if I was doing my job correctly, this would cause the
students to like me even less. In school, students want easy days. This doesn’t
mean they’re lazy (who among us doesn’t want a break from time to time), but it
does mean that if I actually give them work to do and hold them accountable I’m
probably not going to be their favorite teacher. This doesn’t mean that all
teachers who are liked, don’t give work or vice versa, but it did make me feel
a little more confident that I was not necessarily doing anything wrong. The teachers nearby told mea I did a great
job, and some of the students when I was leaving said they were going to miss
me. So I guess I didn’t do too bad.
What About You?
Have you encountered students that
didn’t like you? Have you ever had an entire class of students not like you?
What was it like? What did you do? Let
me know in the comments.
Notes:
Sources:
Image Credit: "scream and shout" by Mindaugas Danys
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