How You’re Really Supposed to Treat Your Students
By Helen Lee
Of course there are some exceptions, but let’s face it: no one above the age of five likes being treated like a baby. However, it can be hard to remember this when your students are years younger than you, silly and reckless at times, and are still just kids.
During my second week of interning at Uptown Stories, I was assigned to assist with a workshop called POW! Writing and Drawing Comics. With nearly two years of cumulative experience working with children as young as two years old, middle schoolers, and high school freshmen, I felt confident enough in my ability to handle being a TA for a class of thirteen students between the ages of nine and thirteen. Nonetheless, like all aspiring and current teachers, you never stop learning how to manage your students in order to prepare them for their futures and make their experiences in the classroom fun and memorable.
Out of all the experience I acquired working part-time at different schools, I have the most experience working with children, ages two to five. When you work with children this young, most of the work you do consists of teaching them basic manners, breaking up intense fights between two children who don’t want to share their favorite toy, and cleaning up after their messes. While this helped me realize how important patience is to a teacher and allowed me to improve on this skill, I became used to treating children of all ages the same way.
I couldn’t help but notice this habit when one day, during the workshop, one of the students spilled a cup of water he used to clean his watercolor brush with. I grabbed a pack of napkins from the supply cabinet with the intention of cleaning up the mess myself, but when I was about to, my coworker said, “give the kids the napkins and tell them to clean it up, don’t do it yourself.” I was caught by surprise for two reasons: 1. It’s almost as if he knew I was about to clean up the mess all by myself, and 2. The kids seemed more than happy to help clean up the spilled water. It was then that I realized how I developed the habit of “babying” the kids and doing everything myself. From this small moment, I learned that you have to treat children like they’re adults. When you delegate tasks to them, it makes them feel as if they are capable of doing things on their own.
I continued to notice what effect delegating tasks had on the students, whether it was choosing who would put away the remaining pieces of unused paper on the table or collect all of the paint brushes. Each time I gave the students simple tasks like those, they perked up at the request and were happily doing what they were told. It’s hard to treat children like adults when they are still just kids, but you have to find a balance between disciplining them and giving them freedom to do what they want to do.
Helen is a rising senior and English major at Stony Brook University. Although quiet at first glance, she is described as friendly and animated by her close friends and acquaintances. She is an avid lover of dogs and dreams of having one of her own. When she isn’t hanging out with her friends and getting overly excited about every dog she sees, she spends her time reading poetry and prose. Standing at less than 5 feet tall, she believes she shouldn’t be defined by her short stature and allows her inner qualities to stand out instead. As an aspiring high school English teacher, she often thinks of new ways to better prepare students for their futures. She visualizes what she can do as a teacher and hopes her lessons can make a difference in everyone’s lives.
