Teachers Can Sometimes Block L Essay, Research Paper

Teachers can sometimes block learning rather than aid it.

Teachers can sometimes block learning rather than aid it. A negative teacher cultivates negative students. Teachers are the building blocks of a nation. It is the teacher that molds the brains and personality of a child when they are not at home with their parents. Threatening, embarrassing, and hitting a child for him/her to learn or to understand a concept, does more harm than good.

In the primary and secondary educational system, it is normal to call a child stupid or to hit them if they are slow at getting a certain subject. Some teachers scream at students, or tell the entire class how dumb the particular child is. Others purposely call the child to the board to do certain things that they know the child is incapable of doing. When the child does not do what they are asked to do correctly or makes a mistake, they are insulted in front of their peers, thus embarrassing the child. To teachers this seems like a good way to push the student to do better. They think that by embarrassing or belittling the student they will make him/her determine to do better the next time. Teachers need to realize that they are not the only ones putting pressure on their students. Many children have parents that abuse them if they do not do well in school. This double abuse from the teacher and the parent can cause a child to build up a mental block to learning. When the child tries to learn and cannot get what has been taught, he will automatically think that what he is being told about his learning ability or lack of it is true, and give up on trying to learn.

When I was in primary school, my teacher use to insult the students who got the lowest score in a test or on an assignment; and then she would make it known what she thought of that particular person and where she expected hin/her to be in twenty years. When she was not satisfied with this measure, she would start hitting the students in the class who made more than three mistakes on their work. When I got to highschool I met a teacher who would publically embarrass the students. He even called them stupid and dumb to their faces.

All these primitive methods of teaching cause learning to be a burden. Instead of the students going to school with a relaxed open mind, they go to school scared and afraid of making a mistake. When the teacher asks if what has been taught is understood they are afraid to speak up, for fear of being ridiculed or laughed at by the teacher. While in school, the teacher is the students example and whatever the teacher does the students will do too. If the teacher ridicules a pupil for not doing well on a test or not grasping a certain concept, the other pupils in the class will do the same. While the student is in class, instead of them relaxing and focusing on what is being taught they are all tensed up and afraid of what will happen if they do not understand. Some children are not as fast in learning as others and a teacher who singles them out and makes their learning disability a joke can destroy this student s self esteem and will to learn.

I dreaded going to my classes where the teacher hit or publically embarrassed the students. I was tense, my hands sweat, and I was so nervous that the teacher would call on me to answer a question that I did not know the answer to. While the teacher taught, my friends and I sat there in fear. When the teacher called on one of us to answer a question, we would freeze up. Even if we knew the answer, the fear that the teacher had actually called on us made us forget what we were supposed to say. A teacher who presents himself to his students as someone that they should fear or someone that is unapproachable also helps to create a block to learning. Fear will paralyze the movements of the students. They will not approach the teacher when something is not understood. The fear that the teacher may lash out at them will prevent the learning process.

A teacher may not realize it, but calling a child stupid or making that child feel inferior in any way can cause the child psychological damage. After a child has been told that he or she is not capable of doing school work, or that he/she is stupid; that person will start to believe it. No child should begin to wonder if he or she is dumb or if he or she cannot learn. No child is dumb. Some may take longer to understand than others but this does not mean that they should be ridiculed.

Teachers should try to watch what is said and how they try to teach their pupils.

What they do affects how and when a student learns. One well-known counselor has also pointed out that teachers who choose to ridicule, embarrass, belittle, and insult students when they are a bit slow in learning eventually cause these children to get in drugs because it is something they can take which will deaden their sensitivities so that they do not have to think about all the abuses they have suffered.