Teachers: Heroes or Villians?
Teachers are some of kids biggest role models in their lives. For some kids, they are their only role models. Teachers can be the closest things to real life heros in students lives. However they can also be real life villians.
Teachers have tremendous power over their students and it is easy to abuse. This allows teachers to exploit their power and take advantage of their students. Studies have shown that teachers can be the worst bully a kid has to face. Teachers can abuse their power by hurting students futures, forcing them into situations, and they can abuse students emotionally. To start with, teachers have power over the future of their students.
This can cause them to abuse their power for their own needs. Increasingly, schools have started holding their students back so that they can play for their high school sports teams longer. Teachers can fail students purposely so that they have to play for the team again. Usually, these students are hoping for athletic scholarships. However,according to the NCAA, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, only about 2% of students are awarded athletic scholarships.
U.S News wrote an article about how the odds of getting a sports scholarship are not very likely. For example, “1 million boys play high school football, but there are only about 19,500 football scholarships”. Additionally, when students have to take a grade twice, colleges are even less likely to give them one. Teachers are hurting their students futures by holding them back.
They are given the power to give great recommendations to colleges, but they are also given the power to fail a student which can damage their future. Next, teachers have the power to force students into situations they do not want to be in. This can be small to very very large. For example, The College Fix wrote about a small event that recently happened at a high school in Chicago, a teacher forced a student to stand for the pledge. When asked to stand up his response was “America sucks”. Evidently, this was disrespectful and he apologized the next day.
However, he chose again not to stand. The spanish teacher then forced him to get out of his chair or else his grades would suffer. He said that he didn’t stand because of everything happening in the news lately with African American students that he did not want to pledge for a country that was racist. The teacher oppressed the student and forced him to stand up anyways. Teachers have the power to force students to do whatever they want because they can give them punishments if they don’t listen. Teachers can also force students into doing bigger, and scarier things.
According to “Maplewood teacher charged with having sex with 6 students pleads not guilty” on New Jersey’s website, at Columbia High School two years ago, a teacher sexually harassed six students. The teacher had exploited their power over the students and used it so that they could not stay out of harm and could not speak up. More and more incidents like this have been happening because of how teachers have been abusing their power. Lastly, teachers can often abuse their kids emotionally. As many students and former students know, school can be very stressful. Teachers have the choice to either help students with their stress or make it worse.
They have the power to make either choice and students can’t do anything about it if they choose to make it worse. Studies from The Socjournal have shown that rejection from teachers and humiliation adds on to students stress leading to severe anxiety. It also says, “The children also lacked creativity, persistence and enthusiasm”. Not only does it lead to stress but it also diminishes a student’s creativity and confidence. When teachers avoid students and make them feel like their work and part of society doesn’t matter it is emotional abuse.
When teachers purposely put a student in a public situation knowing they will fail, causing them humiliation, it is emotional abuse. Teachers have the power to make school a safe environment but instead many teachers do the opposite. For instance, Research Net documented an instance where a teacher “bullied” a student. The article said, “Every?day?when?Jason? entered?the?classroom,?he?had? to? face? his?second-period?teacher,?who? would?make subtle?remarks?about?his?culture and?the?way?he?dressed.?He?felt morti?ed,?degraded,?and?depressed.?Every?day?when?Jason?entered?the?classroom,?he?had? to? face? his? second-period?teacher,?who? would?make?subtle?remarks about his?culture and?the?way?he?dressed.
? He?felt?morti?ed,?degraded,?and?depressed”. Jason wasn’t able to speak up because of the power the teacher had over him. Emotional abuse by a teacher can be one of the most demoralizing actions to a student. In conclusion, teachers have lots of power over students. It can either be used to make a student feel confident or it can be abused and tear a student down.
Teachers are a big part of students lives and school boards equally to what a student says about a teacher to what a teacher says about a student. The job of a teacher is to teach a student and give them knowledge to set them up for a good future. So why are some teachers setting up students for failure?
