When you think back to your time in high school, is there a teacher that comes to your mind? Keep thinking about that teacher. Why did you think of them? You may have fond memories of their class, or think highly of them, or maybe they even earned your respect.
Respect is an idea that most people are familiar with, from Aretha Franklin’s famous song, to school mission statements, to the baseline level of courtesy many people believe others deserve. We all want to treat people with respect, yet when you put this idea–respect–under a microscope, it is far more complicated than it seems.
Researchers in the social sciences have identified respect as a concept key to developing close interpersonal relationships (Frei & Shaver, 2002) as well as playing a significant role in group dynamics (Huo & Binnings, 2008). But definitions of respect are far-ranging, spanning emotion, action, state of being, and philosophical concept (Li & Fischer, 2007; Kant et al., 1959). There can never be a singular definition or understanding of respect, as it fully depends on the context. Factors such as age, culture, and institutional or structural power dynamics shape all human interactions–including how others earn our respect.
Over the past year, I have been working on a Senior Honors Thesis in the Smith College Education Department on respect in the secondary classroom. I have interviewed students about a time a teacher earned their respect, and conversely I have interviewed teachers about a time students earn their respect. Using qualitative methods, I have identified themes present throughout these narratives with the goal of understanding how both groups understand respect in student-teacher relationships as well as seeing in what ways they may conflict with one another.
Throughout all of the student interviews, one of the most apparent themes was students’ desire for their teachers to understand them beyond the classroom context, and beyond their roles as students. One student even explicitly stated: “He saw me more as a person first then a student.” Students want to feel that their teachers see them as human beings, and not just students. When teachers have strong relationships with their students, academic achievement increases (Mertz et al., 2015), need for discipline decreases (Gregory & Ripski, 2008), and teachers feel more fulfilled in the work they do (Spilt, Koomen, & Thijs, 2011). Finding ways to make students feel known as people is key to achieving these mutually fulfilling relationships.
Within the typical structure of middle and high schools in the United States, it can be extremely difficult for teachers and students to build these meaningful and close relationships. Social scientists Jacquelynne S. Eccles and Robert W. Roeser published an article in 2011 describing the many ways in which American middle and high schools currently place many students at a disadvantage in terms of their current developmental stages. Their critique ranges from the mismatch between teenage circadian rhythms and early start times to the quick-paced day made up of 45-minute classes on different subjects and with different teachers. Teachers often also face considerable pressure from districts with regard to implementing predetermined curriculums, raising their students’ standardized test scores, and meeting other state- or district-wide expectations that can negatively impact their outlook in the classroom (Pelletier et al., 2002). While these structural challenges exist, in my research the teachers who earned students’ respect were those who emphasized the importance of bringing students’ “personhood” into the classroom. Even within current structural barriers and pressures, teachers still have opportunities to allow students’ “personhood” to play a larger role in the classroom sphere in more subtle and readily accessible ways.
Teachers can begin their year by building mutually created classroom guidelines or discussion expectations with their students. Providing teenagers with the chance to express what is important to them, as well as feel that their voice is a part of building their classroom experience, could help them feel heard. Having explicit conversations with students about how they will feel respected, and how others in the class want to be treated, has the possibility of creating a more comfortable and aware classroom culture for all students.
Teachers can also, once students’ personalities become clear, allow student personalities to play a role in the classroom community. For example, rather than seeing a “class clown” personality as a troublemaker, see them for what they are: funny, goofy, and hoping to entertain their classmates. Lean into kids’ personalities.
It will also be a big help to know what activities your students do outside of school. The beginning of the year can be a great opportunity for students to share their interests. While it may not be possible to attend a school’s sports games or musical performance, even looking up the scores or offering a student a good luck sentiment before a performance is a simple way to demonstrate that you know them and you care about them.
If there is space in the school curriculum, another way to help students feel recognized and acknowledged in the classroom is through student-centered learning practices such as project-based learning, discussion-based classes, and culturally relevant pedagogy. These teaching methods provide opportunities for students to have agency over their learning and reframe teachers as facilitators rather than authorities on knowledge (Fredericks, 2014). Even if you work in an environment where you cannot implement these large curriculum changes, even letting students pick the book they use for an essay assignment or having them choose their own research topic based on their interests could be another more accessible way to achieve these same ideas. These practices allow students’ personalities, interests, and opinions to be centered in the work they are doing in school (Fredericks, 2014) and also offer the chance to increase educational equity for minority students or students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds (Hwang & Holmes, 2016).
Most teachers care deeply about the work they do, and for the well-being of students (McLaughlin, 1991). In listening to students’ desires for respect from teachers, we can better understand how to meet students’ needs and in turn, improve the experience of both students and teachers. One place to improve the relationship between students and teachers is in recognizing students’ personhood in the classroom. This is about acknowledging who your students are–whether this is through a relationship, curriculum choice, or the classroom environment you work together to create. Find out what respect means to your students, and then make it happen.