Tips for Gaining Rapport with your Latin Students
While revolving ideas in my head for the next Mellarium post, I found myself frequently coming back to this idea of likability in the classroom. I have mentioned in a couple of my other posts how poorly the unrelentingly stern disciplinarian teacher model worked for me, and I would be amazed to hear that it worked for anyone else for more than a couple of weeks. The fact is that children, by and large, simply do not happily engage in work when compelled to do so against their will, no matter how badly you want them to enjoy it. None of us like being compelled to do anything, in fact, but we convince ourselves that children will listen if they are scared enough, and they should, because they are children and children should be obedient to their elders bla bla.
I had to learn the hard way that an over-strict demeanor does not work. We are not there to be their friends, but we are also not there to boss them around. We are in the classroom to teach, and students are much more willing to learn if 1) they respect and admire their teacher, and 2) they feel that the work they are doing is meaningful or, at the very least, entertaining. If you are struggling to manage your class, if your students don’t seem to listen to you, ask yourself: “Would you listen to you?” Place yourself in the students’ shoes from time to time and acknowledge the amount of work you are asking of them without tangible or visible recompense besides, assuming they are doing well, good grades, and the occasional “good work!”. But receiving praise from someone they do not esteem may produce an effect opposite of what you would expect. They might be tempted to act out to save face with their peers.
We should strive to be admirable, charismatic, and, in a word, likable. These qualities can earn the students’ respect and attention, thereby rendering the task of instructing them an easier one. Consider how much respect coaches get, especially if the students know that the coach excels at some sport they deem “cool”. Sure, this doesn’t mean that the students will want to run that mile every time the coach asks them, but it goes a long way, because the students see him as someone that they would like to emulate. They will willingly undertake burdensome tasks that maybe they would not naturally be inclined to do, both out of respect for his knowledge and also out of a desire to be like him.
If only we Latin teachers had that same dynamic with our students, right? It is hard to compete with a coach because the students have usually chosen to be there, and they more easily see athleticism as a trait they would like to possess. Proficiency in Latin, maybe not so much, but there are other ways of gaining rapport with students. You are never going to convince them that Latin is cool with good arguments for it. What you can control, however, is the student’s perception of you. If they like you, they might be a little more open to what you have to say, and even if they are not interested in Latin, they will be more inclined to listen out of a simple respect for you. I have listed below a few ways that work well for earning that rapport.
Show some Mercy
The first and easiest step you can take towards getting students on your side is to opt for clemency over severity. Half of the class didn’t finish the assignment? Yeah, it is frustrating, but it will be even more frustrating if you decide to give half the class failing grades and subsequently receive a bunch of emails from angry parents while stressed about the fact that half of the class is failing Latin. I’m not saying you should be merciful all the time. School is also a place to learn that actions have consequences. If a student didn’t write the homework down and forgot to do it once or twice, that shouldn’t be a problem. The student who consistently forgets to write their homework down should probably feel the consequences of neglecting to do so. A balance should be struck, but tending towards mercy is not only a better way to get students and parents on your side, but it is also just much more emotionally sustainable. It is far too easy to get way over frustrated when students don’t reach the expectations we set for them, and this leads me to my next tip:
Recalibrate your Expectations
We can delude ourselves into thinking that the longer and the more challenging the exercise or homework assignment is, the better. I have found in teaching Latin, anyway, the prolix and challenging assignments are frequently prolix and challenging for the wrong reasons. Students are too often given an assignment in which they have to look up almost every single word, or every single paradigm to complete it. It takes a long time, and it is really difficult for the students, but can we honestly say it was the most effective use of their time? By putting the wrong kind of expectations on students we hurt our relationship with them on two fronts. By giving them copious amounts of difficult busywork, they grow to dislike us, and by receiving less than satisfactory results on these assignments, we grow to dislike them. This is a bad situation to be in!
I am a big advocate of the Latin immersion classroom which, despite its reputation, actually raises expectations, assuming that it is exercised intentionally by a knowledgeable teacher, since it demands a lot more from students, but it does so in a more efficient, effective, and less burdensome way. They must learn vocabulary to communicate in order to be minimally successful in the classroom, but the exercises are organically and furtively supplied to them in the act of running the class.
Increasing homework assignments and exercises superficially ramps up the difficulty and it’s a tempting habit, since, prima facie, it makes our jobs easier. In reality, it is counterproductive. Not only do students get irritated just by having to do it, but it also often puts them in a situation where they are tempted to cheat without consequences. Google Translate, A.I., and the availability of answers online just make it way too easy for students to get away with not doing what you wanted them to do on their own. In a situation like this, we want to blame the student, and yes, they are culpable, but in another sense, we are the ones that put them in a position that made cheating a viable option for them. I have mentioned in another post how important it is to not set your students up for failure. By giving an unnecessary amount of useless exercises, you are setting your students up in one way or another to fail, and we get frustrated when they don’t meet the expectations that were impossible for most of the students to meet anyway. All of this damages what could be a good relationship. Recalibrate your expectations. Hold students to a high standard, but not the wrong one.
Humor
The next tip I have for getting students to like you is probably the most important one, and that is to have a sense of humor! Nothing works better in the short term for getting students on your side than a sense of levity. The charism of modern classical education is quite grave, stern, strict, and cold. Is this the kind of environment you would want to be in if you were a kid? You don’t want to go overboard with it, but crack some jokes from time to time, and laugh at your mistakes. You thought the plural of monkey was monkies and you wrote it on the board, tell them that you were talking about the band, not the animal or something (I don’t know). Have some fun in the classroom. Keep your humor elevated, but not heady. Don’t descend to the base humor of the students. Kids love to laugh.
Play some Games
The kinds of games you play should be conducive to learning Latin, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t be fun. Experiment. I have found that students actually have some really good ideas for games that you can adapt.
Show Them that You Care
Finally, take an interest in your students’ lives. It is not enough to just tell your students that you care about them. They will find that hard to believe if you are making class miserable. Show them. Ask them how their soccer game went or about something funny that happened to them over the weekend. Maybe even consider showing up to an athletic event of theirs, especially if they ask you to be there. Go out of your way to help students, even if it is not Latin-related.
And that is the post. I hope you were able to get something out of it. If you disagree or feel like you have something to add, feel free to leave a comment below.
Latin Teacher Immersion Course
If you are interested in learning how to implement immersion into your classroom, I am running an online course starting April 6th that you can join to dive into more specifics about running a class in Latin and how to improve your grasp of the language to specifically to accomplish this task. You can read more about it here. Valete!