Practice What You Preach

“If you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything at all.” Common phrase. We’ve all heard it a million times, but, does it really mean anything if the person saying it doesn’t take their own advice.

? I’ve sat in a classroom a couple times and listened to a teacher bash one of my classmates. I always found myself getting irritated hearing a teacher talk badly about one of their students. It’s just not right, regardless of what a student did, didn’t do, or said. It shows slight immaturity when a teacher shares one student’s faults in front of a classroom of other students. High schoolers gossip, adults shouldn’t join in.

It’s one thing to bring up a specific situation about a student, but it’s a different story to drop names. Just because some one broke the rules or got in trouble, doesn’t mean to put aside their feelings. It’s embarrassing for anyone to be called out in front of their peers. And you never know how someone might go about handling their embarrassment. I’ve also heard of teachers making inappropriate comments about a student behind their back.

Maybe going as far as cracking a personal joke about them in the classroom. That’s definitely not setting a good example for the young minds they’re teaching. It’s almost as if they’re making it okay to say things like that. Teachers can’t really expect for no one to repeat something that they may have said. If a teacher is making fun of someone, students will take full advantage, and they won’t hesitate to take part of it. If a teacher has a problem with a student, it should be between them and that one student.

Not everyone else. Morals that they teach us will never set in if they don’t practice what they preach.