Chapter 2: Respect, Liking, Trust, and Fairness

I enjoyed the first student comment in this section. There was a coach who didn’t make his team work hard and often took them out to dinner. Though they all liked this coach, they never won so a new coach was hired. This coach was not liked because he made them practice hard, but in the end they kept winning. Though they did not like this coach they grew to respect him.

This goes along with one of my favorite things said in our orientation session the other day. “You can be friendly with the students, but you can not be their friend.” Though we all want to be liked there is a fine line between being liked and getting results. In the example, the students didn’t practice so they didn’t get better, the same would go in a classroom. If a student doesn’t want to try something hard, you can’t just give them something else to do that they already know. Though they might not like you for being hard, they will respect you, because they have accomplished something, even though they didn’t enjoy it at the time.

Source: Fires in the Bathroom, Kathleen Cushman