Two Cents Worth: Student - Teacher Relationship

The author starts Two Cents Worth with her personal opinion about Student - Teacher Relationships. All views presented are of the view of the author (Michelle Constantino) and no views are intended to hurt other people, Two Cents Worth is an outlet for information which could be taken accounted for in one's daily experiences or have related to once in their lifetime.           

           A normal student – teacher/professor relationship is seen in the classroom: Teachers facilitate the daily lesson to a group of 40 or more students. Each student take on a minimum of 40 minutes to 1 hour class everyday on a certain subject and they have consultation hours to consult their professors if they do not understand the lesson. After the semester or grade level is over, the closeness of the student & teacher weakens and when they meet in corridors, they just greet each other with “HI’s or HELLO’s”.

          What I’ve described above is a normal view on a student-teacher relationship. Nowadays, there are 2 different views on this kind of relationship apart from it being a part of the academe which was considered as normal by the society: the “parent” relationship and the “lover” relationship.

          The “parent” relationship happens when a student tend to find attention/seek help to a teacher/professor. Because teachers play a “second-parent” role to students, some teachers consider it innate to listen to the problems of their students. They would spend some time talking about “Life” and trying to help the student amidst all their problems. – nothing special, however, this tend to be misunderstood by fellow students when the student/teacher are of opposite sex.

          The second type of relationship that happens between a teacher & a student is the “lover” relationship. The “lover” relationship nowdays happen when the student – teacher are close to each other, of the same age and would find each other attractive. This situation may seem to be odd but it does happen because no one can control what one heart should feels. However, if it should happen, teachers should understand that it is against school’s policy to have a relationship with a student, nevertheless, schools maintain a strong policy to prevent it from happening.

          I do not promote the concept of a student – teacher relationship being “immoral”, my two cents to this is they must learn their grounds in what they do in the academe. The teacher in the relationship should always play “fair”, no special treatment to his or her love. They should keep things private and they should not make it feel for other students that being close to a teacher is bad.

I can talk seriously about this because I was a victim of this kind of talk, I had to endure all the branding that students could ever think of: boyfriend, pet, straw… any brand you can think of. I just had to endure the fact that the teacher was pretty much of a dad to me. So next time you think that you are close to a teacher particularly of the opposite sex with nothing to hide, do not hesitate to get out in the open, do not hide while conversing and make people see you, that way they could realize that this is not another student – teacher relationship in the offing. 

Posted in: 2cents,Opinion