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How To Be A Good Influence On Your Students Amidst Rising Indiscipline Cases

Being a teacher is not just about walking into the classroom, and teaching whatever you teach, then go away. There’s more about being a teacher than just teaching. There are those things that your students will learn without you saying or doing.

Know that the students are always watching your every step, including;

  • Your habits
  • Your appearance
  • Your response to situations
  • The way you live your life

The next thing that you have to know is the fact that students place you on higher ground, and no matter how much they despise you, anything you do will seem right, or doable in their opinion. Now, how do you get to be a good influence on your students?

In this article, you’ll find a couple of ideas about influencing students. Some you might probably be knowing. And, you’ll get to know whether your actions, your speech, or conduct sends the wrong message to your students. Let’s start…

1. Know the kind of position you’re in

When you don’t know the depth of the waters you’re in, you’re most likely bound to drown. If you’re just starting your teaching career, you probably aren’t sure what the depth of your water is. Here are a few things you have to know about your position;

  • Students look at you as an exemplary character. This means they’ll not judge you as they judge themselves. They believe you’ve mastered control over your emotions, and can control yourself.
  • Your employer expects you to perfectly do what you’re supposed to. This is the reason why many teachers get fired when they fail to get their act together.
  • Parents or the majority of them, expect you to be like the second parent to their children. So, you have to be the one that helps their children in terms of moral upbringing.

Read Also: 10 Important Teaching Tips for New Teachers.

After knowing how ideally fragile your position is, you become aware of what you have to do in order not to break it, or compromise your reputation in any way. This calls for you to be careful about what you do or say.

2. Respect everyone around you

Besides self-respect, respecting everyone else around you is one way that you can get respected in return. Giving respect to everyone around you inspires your students to do the same to everyone else they know or associate with.

Of course, not all students will be able to emulate this humble lifestyle, and some of them might even misunderstand the idea of respect so here it is;

  • Valuing the presence of everyone around you.
  • Valuing the privacy of other people. This means you won’t be caught sneaking around them or checking their stuff.
  • Being gentle and friendly towards your students and your colleagues.
  • Having fun and joking without insulting other people’s feelings and exceeding your limits.
  • Refraining from scandal and gossip, especially about your colleagues.

3. Be kind

Kindness is a gift, but there have always been people that look at it as a sign of softness and weakness. This is a false view of the world, and your students can fall for it if you let them. As you show acts of kindness to your colleagues and students, teach them how to do it and make them feel good about it.

Even though being kind is one of the ways to leave yourself susceptible to being emotionally injured, you have to let your students know how noble it is.

4. Say what you won’t wish to reverse

Besides the fact that you always have to say the truth, there are certain times that our emotions get the best of us and make us do indiscreet things that we later wish we didn’t do.

No matter how much you get provoked or enraged by your boss, colleagues, and students, it’s important that you don’t forget your courtesy as a teacher. This is how you can control what you say.

  • Walk away if you’re too angry.
  • Say nothing if you haven’t properly thought of what to say.
  • Don’t try to fill the gap of silence with words. This usually happens when we’re around people that shake our confidence a bit, and we usually get disturbed by their silence. However, just try as much as you can not to fill the gap. Silence is better sometimes.

5. Take responsibility for your actions

Many teachers make mistakes and feel like they can’t admit they made them or take responsibility for their actions because it might make them look weak. However, it actually makes you look stronger and solves problems faster than denying your actions.

Living with such a trait and encouraging your students to do it will give them a good image and make you the perfect inspiration.

6. Give advice to those that need it

Some students can’t just look at you or read the signs you show and understand what they have to do. Some won’t even ask for your advice but the best you can do is give it to them, and perhaps you’ll change a thing or two about them.

The best advantage you have is their undivided attention and respect towards you that they might listen to you and consider what you tell them.

7. Avoid getting in trouble

You’re a teacher, but you’re also human, and there are lots of things you might want to do especially if you’re still young. On the weekends, you’ll want to get to the club sometimes, and that’s okay, but getting drunk and getting into a fight only to end up in a jail cell the morning after is not a good thing. And even besides jail, the whole fact that you fought, sends the wrong message to your students.

There are many other ways besides this, that you can get yourself into trouble, but sense it, and stay out of it.

8. Have Self-control

This actually applies to almost everything above, but I’d like to put it a little differently and to focus on one part. As a teacher, you might be teaching in a mixed school with girls and boys, and the worst thing you can ever do is get in a romantic relationship with a student.

This not only sends a wrong message to your students, but they cease to look at you as their teacher. If they still respect you, you’ve inspired them to do the same when they become teachers.

Conclusion;

When a parent cusses in front of their child, they haven’t just okayed the fact that their child will cuss, but also encouraged them to do it in front of their elders or superiors and feel free about it. Therefore, your students have an eye on you, and will emulate whatever you do, or will call you names depending on what they see you do. Caution is paramount.


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