Become A Teacher: Exercise Decorum
Most teachers first decided to become a teacher because of their love for children, and an enjoyment of being in their company as well as a desire to educate. This love of children and of the subject matter that they teach is the passion that helps them to keep going and allows them to overcome the obstacles and stressors that the business of teaching throws at them each day, even with the low pay rate it provides.
This means that teachers are not motivated by career advancement or money, usually, but by other values and by inner passion, and this is why many teachers continue doing the same thing, for example teaching maths in sixth grade, and never move beyond that. It is not that they are stuck there or incapable of moving one, but because they are driven by their inner passion to do just that job.
Decorum in teaching means never losing sight of the appropriateness of the teacher-student relationship. It is good to enjoy warmth and affection between you, but you must stay within appropriate limits when it comes to expressing that affection. Here are some of the guidelines for teacher behaviour in this regard:-
* Smiles and being supportive with regard to academic progress are acceptable, however statements about your feelings of affection towards a student or complimenting their looks are not.
* Try not to touch a student, although this can be difficult when there are between twenty and thirty of them in the room with you; contact which is a show of affection should be avoided, however, because it is open to misinterpretation.
* Teachers, especially male teachers in high and junior high school, should be careful of how they look at students. Students at this age are highly aware of their physical appearance, and girls in particular might dress in a manner that gets them looked at, whether you mean to or not. You need to discipline your gaze to concentrate on students' faces rather than anywhere else, because this could lead to problems, even if you meant nothing by it.
* Protect yourself by ensuring that you are not alone with any student, male or female.
These are the sort of issues that you might not have thought of when you decided to become a teacher. Yet it is an important part of the job of teaching, unfortunately, because there have been some well publicized cases of inappropriate relationships between teachers and students. This means that good teachers with no inappropriate intentions towards their students have to go about their jobs in this austere manner, so that others who are being over-zealous cannot misinterpret something they see, and cause the situation to get well out of hand.
