Learning Journal

Let us enter into Bloom's affective domain for this week's 'Learning Journal with Tom'.
In my final lesson before packing up for the end of term break, a group of students came over and we got chatting. One of their friends has, sadly, left the course because he got an E in his exam and didn't like the subject anyway. Otherwise, they were all very happy and enthused, and felt as if they could do better next time, even though their own grades had been quite bad. I sympathised with them and supported them when they said that they felt as if they knew much more now, because the more of the syllabus they covered the more it made sense. But, most happily, one of the things they mentioned was what a good teacher they thought I was.
Haha! Phew!
I would not be on the course if I did not think that I could be a satisfactory teacher - not just up to FENTO standards, but also up to the standards of students. I myself have had too many unpleasant teachers to want to be one of them. It's something of a combination of assumed authority, qualities of a dictator, and ignorance of students that makes a truly despisable teacher. Teachers need, to be found pleasant, to be in touch with their students and give them some respect. And it was undeniably heartening that my strategy of respecting my pupils has paid off. Although I don't feel that I can take responsibility for the leaving of the most awfully inattentive students, because they jacked it in all on their own.
Respect is certainly something that I feel for my students, and I give them all the help I can, while also explaining to them how much I expect them to be able to do; simultaneously supporting, praising, and pushing. If they need a few words of advice, such as 'yes', 'no', or 'humperdinck', then they get it. If they need to understand a tricky concept, such as reliability in psychological experiments, I give them a textbook and read it through with them. And if they want me to write their whole report for them, as one student did... well, you do your best to convince them that it is better done under their own steam.
Yet, respect is one thing, and 'unconditional positive regard' another. I see UPR as a covert form of abuse. Can it be really meant, or is it just an acted facade of facilitatoriness? Is it merely a form of permissive, laissez-faire management that makes it easier for yourself as the teacher? I think respect must engender an unlimited amount of positive regard for positive things, but not unconditional regard. To go down the UPR route is to deny people volition, or so I believe - a million forms of "whatever you do I accept, because I don't think it's your fault". I don't think I could ever say that to my students, unless something really wasn't their fault. In learning, you have to be ready to engage with your flaws, whatever they are. In teaching, you have to be ready to negotiate those flaws and talk them through. And some flaws just don't deserve positive regard, because some things should not be permitted, for as a psychologist, I reckon that people are massively complex. We present so many aspects of ourselves in different situations. It is not harmful to point out one aspect and let your student know that you cannot endorse it. UPR is merely a tactic of delaying change and enforcing conformity to an attitude of uneasy, unmeant compromise, where problems don't have to be addressed, just covered up.
Respect is acknowledging your students as they are, allowing them to talk and act for themselves, and doing your best to help them through whatever trials and tribulations they come across. UPR is smothering them with a blanket form of dismissive uncaring. And perhaps that's the root of my respect, I value each of my students and want them to value themselves. But value, to be positive, has to allow a negative. I'm afraid that I am committed to wanting to inspire some form of growth, even if it means registering an unhappiness, rather than blindly believing that everyone will go along fine in the end and nothing needs to be acted on, just because it allows you to sit back and say everything is A-OK. This is why I didn't do a counselling masters and came on this course instead.
So, hurrah for respect!