Lefton Learning Community

The Teacher-Student Relationship: It should be both professional and polite.

A. Jerome Jewler, College of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of South Carolina.

A student once described a meeting with one of his professors in this manner:

I felt I needed to ask my professor about the grade he gave me on an exam. I didn't feel it was fair. So I did the proper thing and made an appointment to see him. I arrived on time to find his door shut. Through the door, I could hear him talking on the phone. I knocked timidly and heard him say, "Come in." I entered and he waved me to a chair and continued his conversation for what must have been four or five minutes. During that time, he never looked my way or otherwise acknowledged me. When he hung up, he turned to me and said, "Now what do you want to talk about?" I swallowed hard and said, "Oh, I just needed to find out when the assignment was due," thanked him, and walked out.

Okay. Nothing terrible happen here. Why, then, did the student lose courage and fail to ask about the exam? Think back to your days as an undergraduate student, and try to remember the difference between professors you could talk to easily and those you would never dare approach. Maybe the latter group never intended to intimidate you (certainly, some of them probably did, but they're not worth discussing here!), but because of a lack of sensitivity about students, they failed to send you a signal that you were welcome in their offices.

While you certainly need to make it clear to your students that you're in charge, its also essential to give them your ear when they ask, and to listen carefully. Here are several reasons we say this.

First, students are probably not comfortable about approaching you in the first place. The fact that they have asked to see you indicates they're more or less serious about the meeting.
Second, we know from tons of research that the more comfortable students feel about talking with you, the harder they'll work for you and the more they'll wind up learning.
Finally, part of your responsibility as a teacher is to be available for students outside of class. Some of the most important learning takes place in this manner, so don't sell your students,or yourself, short.

Establishing a Procedure

How will students know you are interested in meeting with them? Put a comment in the syllabus telling them so. Then, in your opening remarks during the first class period, encourage them to seek you out if they are having problems with the course or with other courses. Give them your office phone number and room number, and tell them they can call for an appointment or see you after class to schedule a meeting.

Being Prepared for the Meeting

When you schedule this meeting, ask the student to describe what he or she wishes to see you about. If it concerns grades on exams or papers, you can tell the student to be certain to bring these things to the meeting. As for your preparation, simply be there as promised. If possible, have your calls forwarded until the meeting is over, and try to avoid other distractions.

To make students feel more at ease, you might consider arranging your office so that the desk is against the wall, and therefore does not act as a physical barrier between you and the student. Get away from the computer, don't be doing busy work; in short, give the student your full attention throughout the meeting.

Should You Give Advice or Just Listen?

In many cases, listening with genuine interest is enough. Quite often, you will find that students simply want to talk things out with a knowledgeable person, and that in doing so, they discover their own answers to the problems confronting them. If you have never learned the process of active listening, seek assistance from a professor of psychology, or find one of the many popular works on the topic. Basically, active listening is nothing more than listening carefully, rephrasing what you heard to check out your assumptions, and then giving the other person (in this case your student) ample time to talk back to you.