Teacher-Student Relationship

"I enjoy teaching Muhlenberg students because their curiosity fuels my own, and their questions cause me to think. A warm community based on learning develops where we engage each other in and out of the classroom. Faculty and students collaborate, explore, and learn together.”
These words, written by Dr. Richard Niesenbaum, associate professor of Biology at Muhlenberg College, get at the heart of what makes America’s liberal arts colleges great. It is the possibility of real relationships between students and professors, and the impact those relationships can have on what a student learns and how a student views himself or herself from that point forward.
Besides the duty of educators and scholars to provide learning settings to enhance cognitive development and intellectual achievement, it became apparent that nonintellectual factors also deserve educators’ attention. Nightingale (1994) debates that in institutes with increased class sizes with students from different backgrounds in many aspects, creating an emotional and caring climate is conducive to high quality learning and also very challenging for the teacher. Likewise, according to Biggs (1999), each individual teacher, like institutions as a whole, creates a learning climate either through formal or informal interactions with students. This climate is about how a teacher and students ‘feel about things and that naturally has positive and negative effects on students’ learning.’ He further stated that ‘the quality of the relationship set up between teachers and students, or within an institution, is referred to as its climate, the way the students feel about it.’
Teachers, either inside the classroom or outside the classroom, exert a great deal of influence on establishing a good quality of teacher-student relationship. In such an emotional climate the ‘most important ingredients of effective teaching’ for teachers to build up, is to maintain and improve a positive relationship with students and provide respective materials to cater for students’ needs and interests (Jones, 2004). Students’ deeper understanding can be achieved through dialogue and collaboration with their peers and their teachers (Biggs, 1999). It can be argued that student-teachers relationship is fairly important in teaching and learning. Theoretically they provide a rational for the importance of teacher-student relationship in teaching and learning. Empirically they form conceptions of good teaching and good teachers in terms of student-teacher relationship. According to Barry (1999), students are humans first and learners second. The institute is not only an educational institution for teachers to enhance student’s learning, but also an interactive community of human beings. German sociologist Ferdinant Tonnies distinguishes between the connotations of ‘Gemeinschaft’ (community) and ‘Gesellschaft’ (organization). According to him, Gemeinschaft (community) exists in three forms: kinship (‘we’ identity), place (sharing of common local) and mind (the bonding together of people resulting from mutual binding to a common goal, shared set of values and shared conception of being). An institute is assumed to be such an ideal community or a tie that binds students and teachers together in special ways to something more significant than themselves through shared values and ideals. This ideal community of institute helps teachers and students be transformed from a collection of ‘Is’ to a collective ‘we’ (Sergiovanni, 1994: Xiii). This view is illustrated as follows:
‘I am me—with thoughts and feelings of my own’. (Sergiovanni, 1994: Xiii)
Therefore, teachers need to attune to the feeling of any classroom as a social place where students are individuals and mix with teachers like their peers. They compete against each other, yet are longing to be appreciated and valued as human beings. Since human beings are social beings each student’s sense of well -being depends to a greater extent on interpersonal relationships. ‘Establishing close relationship with others is essential for well-being and happiness. Through our interpersonal relationships, we establish our personal identity, express our thoughts and feelings, engage in collaborative activities with others and satisfy or needs for affiliation with others’. (Haslett, 1987: 196) ‘Teaching is fundamentally a person-to-person activity— a social happening during which the teacher and student are involved in teaching learning process. …. only by interpersonal interactions and group interaction can a teacher fulfils the necessary job of teaching. … teaching involves a great deal of person to person contact, and this enables us to be human. (Barry, 1999) Many students actively seek out support and attention from their teachers and from their peers. Support from teachers is clearly a major management strategy—it can be used to reinforce desired behaviour by the teachers as well as to build self-esteem and generally more positive relationships between teachers and students in a class. Self-esteem, which is an intrinsic motivation, is one of the most basic of human needs. It is a powerful factor in classroom behaviour. (Marsh, 2000; Marsh, 2000).
‘I am a student—with hopes and desires’ (Sergiovanni, 1994: Xiii).
Learning is an individual matter, accompanied by the learner himself, at his own pace, and in accordance with his own interest, age, values, background (socioeconomic, class, ego stage development), learning objectives, and motivation for learning. (UTMU, 1976: 9; Milton, 1978: 212) To cater for each individual’s needs and interests, motivation and style in learning is fairly important in teaching and learning in universities. These are considered as the ‘hidden curriculum’, which exists implicitly in teachers’ ‘mannerism’ (Flinders, 1997). According to (Barry, 1999), how good the teacher’s relationship with students is largely decided by the quantity and quality of contact made with each student as an individual. A good teacher treats students as individuals, has a loving heart and is warm to his/her students. He or she empathises with his/her students.
‘I am a friend—with love and warmth’ (Sergiovanni, 1994: Xiii). All students want friends and want to have a sense of worth, of belonging and of binding with students and teachers and are ready to make friends with both. That accounts for the importance of a friendly atmosphere inside or outside of the classroom.
‘I am a student with a teacher—with a will to learn’ (Sergiovanni, 1994:Xiii).
It is agreed that students’ learning interest will be aroused and increased if teachers convey their interest into what they teach. Good teaching means that teachers show great concern and respect for students, according to Ramsden (1992), which is one of six key principles of effective teaching. Similarly, according to Nightingale (1994), principles for enhancing high quality learning are 1) engaging feelings and values as well as intellectual development; 2) establishing an environment (physical and social) to support the achievement of high quality student learning –minimize anxieties and maximize enjoyment. Effective teaching is characterized by ‘effective and enthusiastic communication of subject matter and taking personal interest in students, being willing to help and support them and enhancing their confidence in self-esteem.’ (Mortimore, 1999) As teachers, our effective teaching is largely determined by the extent of our relationship skills with students (Barry, 1999) Students believe that their best learning behaviours occur when their teachers are ‘committed to helping them, take time to know them personally (Jones, 2004: 80).
According to Jones (2004), a significant body of research shows that academic achievement and students’ behaviours are greatly influenced by the quality of the teacher-student relationship. The research suggests that ‘the emotional aspect of the teacher-student relationship is much more important than the traditional advice on methods and techniques of lecturing would suggest’ (Ramsden, 1992). Bliss and Ogborn (1977) reported that students are likely to understand the content of lectures if lectures encourage involvement, commitment and interest in students. Ramsden’s (1992: 76) research in Australia shows that interest in undergraduate students’ individual needs, help with difficulties in understanding and learning and creating a climate of trust between teachers and students are fairly important in quality teaching and learning. The quality of the teacher (love, concern for students) is more important than other teaching aspects (Benenett, 2000). The relationship between supervisors and the supervised is fairly important in effective research and project supervision (Brown, 1987). According to Gordon (1994: 24) good teacher-student relationship has openness or transparency, so each is able to risk directness and honesty with the other; caring, when each knows that he is valued by the other; interdependency (as opposed to dependency) of one on the other; separateness, to allow each to grow and to develop his uniqueness, creativity and individuality; mutual needs meeting, so that neither’s needs are met to the detriment of the other’s needs. According to Jones (2004), a teacher-student relationship is characterized by almost complete openness, in which we share a wide range of personal concerns and values with students; openness related to our reactions to and feelings about the school environment, with limited sharing of aspects reflecting our out of school life; an almost exclusive focus on a role-bound relationship that is, we share no personal feelings or reaction, but merely perform our instructional duties. Teachers’ ‘caring is much more than simply the creation of warm interpersonal relationships. It also involves encouraging dialogue with students regarding curricular and instructional decisions, listening to students’ concerns, ensuring that all students have an opportunity to experience success, and ensuring that learning is fun and interesting’. (Jones, 2004: 80) Relations of cooperation are ‘central to the reciprocity of the student-teacher relationship. (Coady, 2000: 154). A good teacher’s personal qualities and characteristics should be ‘being natural, being warm, being pleasant, being approachable and being tolerant’. (Barry, 1999: 100) ‘Students prefer teachers who are warm and friendly’ (Jones, 2004: 78).
A great teacher who is skillful, knowledgeable, inspirational and generous must also be tolerant, compassionate, courageous, righteous and show a deep love and respect for life. He plants seeds of information that, with time and one's practice, bloom into growth and clarity. Students eventually learn to direct these energies with the mind, releasing subtle tensions in the four planes of human existence (physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.) Otherwise, these tensions create resistance and inhibit our progress in these four realms.Patience, compassion, discipline, diligence, and loving kindness, toward ourselves and others we meet on the path, are essential to making genuine progress.
In brief a good and positive teacher-student relationship is characterized by:
· Friendly relationships
· Mutual love and mutual respect
· Trust and cooperation
· Equality
· Mutual understanding
The establishment of harmonious relationships is, to a larger degree, dependent on teachers. As to how to build up a good teacher-student relationship, few points can be enumerated as:
• Teachers’ rich knowledge and amiable personality is the basis of a harmonious relationship between teachers and students.
• Teachers should treat students as friends, showing teachers’ love and concern, which will cause students’ to love them in return.
• Teachers should treat students like their children when talking to them. Teachers shouldn’t criticize their students in front of their peers to let them lose ‘face’. If necessary they should sit down privately and have a talk with them.
• Teachers should have more personal interactions and communication with students, having an open ear to students’ personal troubles.
• Teachers should show their positive attitude towards their students. On the basis of teachers’ high expectation, respect, friendship and love, students will show their cooperative attitude, their respect, friendship and love to their teachers. Thus a harmonious relationship is built up on mutual love, understanding and respect.
The pith and marrow of the above said is tat good teacher-student relationship is built on teacher’s richer knowledge, appropriate teaching approach, respect and love, his or her personal interaction in or out of the class. In a class where a mismatch occurs, the students tend to be bored and inattentive, do poorly on tests, get discouraged about the course, and may conclude that they are not good at the subjects of the course and give up. Instructors, confronted by low-test grades, may become overtly critical of their students or begin to question their own competence.