A teacher's job is priceless in many ways, yet it is highly undervalued in today's society. According to a 2022 survey, less than one in five teachers would encourage a young person to pursue a career in education.
And you don't have to look far to find the reasons. Low salaries are reason enough: the gap between the weekly wages of teachers and college graduates working in other professions grew to 26.4% in 2022. These are record numbers, considering the gap was only 6.1% in 1996.
Teachers are the people shaping the next generation, so we should hold their jobs in high regard. However, the teacher-student relationship can sometimes go both ways. At least, this is what this person had in mind when they started this Quora thread. They asked: "As a teacher, what is the harshest truth a student has ever taught you?"
Many educators shared the unexpected life lessons they got from their students, proving that a kid can teach a teacher something new about the world and life as well.
#21
Words do matter.
I teach in art and design, and unlike other fields, it involves a certain level of subjectivity and personal vulnerability. At the time, my primary teaching responsibilities were upper-level courses tasked with preparing students to become professionals.
In this instance however, I was asked to teach first-semester freshmen — a rarity for me. The class went relatively well and at the end of the term, each student prepared their work for an exit interview and review.
Normally, these reviews are conducted in faculty teams, but during this particular review, I was alone. No big deal, this wasn’t a problem student. She was a promising individual who showed interest and engagement in the arts. She participated in discussion, regularly attended class, and showed potential in digital work. The review was going fine until we covered the final semester grading — she fell just below an A and was clearly distressed and crushed. So, just as I had done dozens of times before, gave her rationale for the decision, walked her through the individual projects, and told her that learning, developing and ultimately the portfolio itself, were more important than any individual course grade.
It didn’t matter, she was broken. Perhaps she had never received a B in her life, maybe I was too direct or too matter-of-fact, maybe instead of talking, I should have sat quietly and gave her a chance to speak. Whatever it was, I will never know, because when she walked out of the room that day, she didn’t come back.
Through that experience I learned to choose my words more carefully. I learned that sometimes I should shut-up and listen instead of rationalize or justify. I also learned that a student’s mental stability should not be assumed or taken for granted. I used to think brutal honesty was the most fair approach to teaching, I was wrong.
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#22
That some students found me to be intimidating.
That’s something I learned from my first student evaluations at the end of the semester. I was shocked. I thought I was kind, gentle, friendly, … Intimidating? I knew I could not be the teacher I wanted to be if students felt that way.
Incidentally, the department chair wasn’t concerned at all. I actually ranked very high in the reviews, despite that comment. Maybe most professors got comments like that. But I didn’t like it.
It was a long trial and error process, one in which I worked to try to understand better the students point of view, not just about the subject, but about interactions with the professor. I think I made substantial progress, since for the last two decades there have been no mentions on the year-end evaluations of me being intimidating.
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#23
One student asked if she can have a private tutoring session after school so I agreed. Feeling honored and proud that a student is asking for a 1-on-1 session, I was so eager to stay an extra 30 mins after school just for her.
She arrived in the classroom and sat down with her head down. I thought she was sad or had a bad day. I pulled up next to her and opened up with “How’s your day?”
“Not so good, Mr. Lam,” said the student. “My dad is threatening to take away my phone if I don’t make grades.”
“But, you just started 9th grade a few weeks ago. You’re doing okay so far in my class,” I responded.
“It’s not just your class, but all of my classes. If I don’t make grades, my dad will take away my phone and I’ll never get it back.” She said with the look of someone about to lose the most precious thing in life.
I spent the next 30 minutes calming her down about her phone situation, grades, and dad. I was ready to leave, but I wanted to wrap this issue up. I asked her “What’s more important? Grades or phone?”
“My phone.”
I don’t know what it is that made this student so dependent on her phone. I understood how cool it was to even carry a phone when I was in middle school, but this was during the dumb phone era. Nowadays? It’s everywhere. I can’t tell if a student is happy to look down at their seat or just double-tapping that Instagram photo secretly.
I learned that this student prioritizes differently from me. She is more concerned about the phone than grades but she can’t see past what’s in front of her. I wanted to tell her that losing a phone is not the end of the world and she should try to see what her dad was doing - the phone is just motivation to maintain her grades.
After that day, the student did not improve in my class. She stopped asking for help after class. She sat with some distracting students and could not focus. Yes, she also was on her phone a lot in class. I was as much responsible for her demise in my class as anyone around her. I tried talking to her about her grades and poor behavior. It was as if she stopped fearing poor grades and losing phone privileges.
TL;DR: Tried reasoning with a student about grades over phone privileges. Student eventually stopped caring about what anyone thinks of her educational well-being. Nothing more dangerous to a teacher than a student that doesn’t care about herself.
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