It’s 3:40 PM at CHS, and the last of the students are packing their bags, pushing in their chairs and leaving school. The only people who remain are teachers, preparing tomorrow’s lesson plan and meeting with one another.
For many, it’s no easy task to instruct a class of loud teenagers, but it’s a whole other undertaking to carve out time in your day to prep for the next block of teaching.
“Just because we go home at 3:40 doesn’t mean we stop working,” said Ryan Farr, a math teacher at Community.
Even though both students and teachers coexist in the same building, their day-to-day experiences can be vastly different. Both groups often have assumptions and misunderstandings about one another, resulting in frustration, confusion and miscommunication at school.
After a long day of instructing his classes, Farr spends his nights grading tests and homework. He believes that much of teachers’ work goes unnoticed because a lot of what they do occurs outside their hours.
Farr also argues that students not only don’t understand the workload teachers have but also often misread his intentions when he tries to discipline the class. He remarked that he was struggling with students’ performance on tests. As a solution, he informed his classes that there would be an assigned seating chart on testing days. Farr felt that afterwards, students viewed the resolution as a punishment.
“I didn’t want it to be a punishment for everyone,” Farr said. “But I feel like a lot of people took it that way with having a seating chart for test days specifically.”
In response to Farr, Aida Aenasoaie, a freshman at CHS, claimed that many teachers make assumptions about students and the meaning behind their actions right off the bat, leading to the creation of strict and unnecessary rules and punishments. While Aenasoaie understands that some students can act out of line when redundant, she believes that it’s important for teachers to be understanding of students and their intentions.
“I think a lot of teachers assume that students are going to be disruptive and rude,” Aenasoaie said. “So frequently, they are too strict, and while being firm is fine, I believe that everyone could benefit from more sympathy.”
Unlike Farr, Brie Sloves, an English teacher at Community, believes that misunderstandings extend beyond the classroom.
Sloves explained that many people fail to recognise the flaws in the educational system.
“I think students think that teachers have a deep respect for the education system and don’t recognise how flawed it is,” Sloves said. “But in actuality, I think for a lot of us, we hold this profession with a desire to improve issues rather than ignore them.”
Sloves believes that students and teachers often misunderstand each other because of the mistrust many have developed in the school system. She thinks that it’s important to work towards rebuilding that trust with the students, expressing that she thinks kindly of each student and the potential they hold. Sloves also believes that many students fail to realise how much teachers continue to think about their students and lessons outside of school hours.
Sloves is constantly reminded of all her students and their group studies.
“I spend a lot of time thinking about my students and my classes,” Sloves said. “I’ll be going about my day-to-day life and see something that makes me think of something I’m teaching or a student, and I’ll think about ways that I can integrate that into my practice.”
While teachers described feeling misunderstood by their students, Aenasoaie believes many students also feel that their struggles are overlooked. Although she agrees that homework is an essential part of school, Aenasoaie believes that teachers should consider the other assignments students receive from their additional classes. She knows that several of her friends feel similarly overwhelmed when trying to balance classes, extracurriculars and their social lives, especially when teachers may not realise how much work overlaps.
Although teachers and students have different school-related issues, they both share the fact that they are misunderstood by each other. Moving forward, students like Aenasoaie want to better understand their teachers’ perspective by hearing each other out.
“I want to have more personal relationships between youth and adults,” Aenasoaie said. “I want everyone to have more understanding for each other.”
Teachers like Farr and Sloves want their students to know that they are seen, heard and capable of doing anything they put their minds to.
In particular, Sloves believes that it’s important to communicate with her students as individuals with their own struggles, perspectives and goals. Although teachers and students often misunderstand one another, Sloves believes that communication is key to creating mutual understanding in the classroom.
While the experiences of teachers and students are entirely different, several of CHS’s students and staff agree that misunderstandings often stem not from intentional rudeness or disrespect, but from a lack of communication between the two groups.
