Educators need to be more understanding
By: Andrew Ameer
Opinions Editor
I have been a manager with one of the world’s largest retailers since I was 21 years old. As a manager, I manage about 50 different people. Each one of those people has a different personality. Each one has a different story. A different life.
Not every one of them is perfect. They make mistakes. As a leader, it’s my job to look at each situation individually when mistakes do happen, to decide what should be done. I must make the decision that is best for the individual, the company, and the rest of the team.
A sense of empathy is a must when dealing with people. The same is true when it comes to teaching students. A professor can’t expect to be successful by putting a book in front a student then telling them to “read and learn”, expecting it to happen.
The modern student has a lot going on. Struggling to pay for school, juggling a job or two or three. Maybe taking care of a child (or two, or three). Some people don’t have a perfect home life, and college is an escape for them. Some people don’t come from a great background, but are in college trying to better themselves.
Students look towards professors and other figures of authority in their lives as means of support. And professors must realize this. Empathy is just as important as any other qualification to be a college professor. It’s important for anyone in a leadership position or a position of authority, really.
I have never been a professor before, but after a few years of college taking many classes from many different professors, and my degree completion right around the corner, I know a good professor when I see one.
When a student messes up, or is struggling in a class, a good professor will ask “Why? What is going on in this student’s life that is causing this sudden drop in productivity?” A crappy professor will say “You’re an adult, suck it up and deal with it.”
At work, if I responded the same way every time one of my workers failed an assignment or didn’t give me 100 percent on a project, I wouldn’t have any workers to manage, because they would all quit. The same is true of college students, particularly in America where many students finance their own education, through loans, their family, or simply straight out of pocket through a job that they work very hard at.
Yes, students must do their part too. Making every attempt to complete coursework on time, striving to learn the subject matter as best as possible, and respecting the knowledge and experience the professor has attained before them.
But some professors need to reflect on what their job truly is; what is their mission. Is it to rigidly enforce the rules they have set out in the syllabus by any means necessary, come hell or high water? Or is it to ensure that students learn the subject they are teaching, and help them on their way to graduation?
Students will make mistakes. They will forget to turn in assignments on time, or they will not do as well on a test as they had attempted to do. Because life happens, particularly to students
