Teaching was not as difficult back in the days when all teachers had to worry about making a strategy and managing a few groups of students every day. Now they not only have to worry about the students, but also following the guidelines of an admission management system, uploading and reuploading lessons on LMS portals, and following a bunch of other sets of rules for being up-to-date with technology and taking online classes.
Amid all these processes, teachers have somewhat forgotten about the mental and emotional development of students. Not because it is no longer an important area of paying attention to, but because other things are more important on a priority basis.
Need for long lasting behavior changes
There is a difference between short-term and long-term effects. Guidelines for a particular grade will not have a lot of effect on the students because they know that following these rules will no longer be valid at the end of the session. This is a temporary change in their behavior patterns which is enforced by disciplinary rules which they have to abide by. Permanent or long-lasting changes would mean imbibing some moral values in them, improving the qualities they already have, polishing their skills, and ensuring that they try to improve these skills every day.
A long-lasting change in a student shapes their entire personality and is capable of bringing them out from negative influence or stopping them from being the negative influence themselves.
Just because long-lasting changes are important does not mean that these are the only changes necessary, temporary changes are also important because the constant practice of these will bring out a permanent improvement. The road to being a better student and person goes through all those short lanes of following temporary disciplines.
Tips for change
Teachers need to come up with better tips because the previous ones are only for traditional or offline classes, behaving in an online class is a completely different story. Here are a few helpful tips;
Teachers should maintain dominant behaviors
Being too strict or too lenient with students is harmful. Anything to the extremes is bad hence teachers should focus on maintaining dominating behaviors up to a certain level only. As soon as they start observing negative consequences because of this strictness, they should tone it down and keep a watch on the child’s activities over time.
Cooperation and coordination
Being dominant does not mean that they will not cooperate or adjust with the students, it simply ensures that students follow them and the guidelines provided. Imposing rules strictly is also not good because students like to rebuild and don’t believe in following only a few rules. To make them follow the guidelines, it should be reasonable, and every reason behind setting the rule must be explained. Every student has the right to information and to know why they are following what the teacher has to say.
Accepting the feedback from students and trying to incorporate the ideas given into a given set of rules is a great way to show coordination. It helps students to trust the educator and follow the rules not for the sake of it, but out of respect and loyalty towards the teacher.
Also read: The Important Things You Pick Up From Broadcast Schools
Respect the students
An educator must be aware that being the teacher does not justify all of their actions, and a level of consideration or regard for the students is required. Students have dignity too and they start to understand it at the beginning of middle school levels. When they aren’t respected as a student and are constantly shamed for lack of marks or behaving disruptively, they do it even more regularly just to annoy the teacher.
Moreover, when a teacher respects the students, the students do the same towards not only the educator but also other classmates and schoolmates. It is promoting a positive environment that has long-lasting effects on students, helping them be successful in their career lines and as an individual.
Respecting also means not discriminating among them based on their progress in class, academic grades, social interaction levels, and so on. Every child is unique and deserves to be respected in a classroom. Even if they are wrong, no teachers should resort to humiliating them or punishing them in such a manner that their levels of self-esteem and confidence go down. This is an example of a negative long lasting effect. Recently institutions are trying to check out punishment strategies and resolving to adopt non-violent forms of educating students and making them follow guidelines.