Emily's Question

Emily's Question: How should students be treated, if not like workers?

In my experience, I have always adopted the idea that as a student, I am less like a worker and more like an apprentice. I am a worker-in-training. Education prepares students for future jobs and careers, and until they have mastered the skills needed to join the work-force, then they are not yet workers. They may work hard in school, but they are working in an effort to become something greater than just a student. For example, I am studying education. I go to the high schools and I teach lessons and observe students in their classrooms. I am not, however, a teacher. I am a teacher-in-training; an apprentice. I think most students gain a sense of entitlement when they believe they are workers. They think they are too good for school and that they already know everything they need to know. If they adopted the idea that they are apprentices, then they might be able to change their perceptions to incorporate new goals and perhaps even humility.

Although the students are partially responsibile for adjusting their mindsets, their teachers are equally responsible for treating them more like apprentices than workers. In my pre-practicum classrooms, the high school teachers treat me like a teacher-in-training, almost like a co-worker on whom they wish to bestow their words of wisdom. I am treated with respect and taken seriously, instead of being treated as though I am subordinant who must obey their rules. When students are treated like workers, then they will feel like workers.

Do you learn differently in classrooms where your professors treat you with respect and maturity than in classrooms where you are treated like student workers?