You cannot force respect

"How do I get young people to respect me?"

That is a question that many of my teaching peers ask me. And they are often surprised by my answer.

"You cannot force people to respect you," I would often reply. Up till today, I have no idea why this statement is so controversial.

The reality is that, while we can force people to act as if they are respectful, actual respect is a choice. In other words, if we live a life that is edifying and admirable, it would be natural for students to respect us.

Youths seek a sense of purpose and hence a model to look up too. As teachers, we have a responsibility to be their role model.

Why students fall

One of the biggest fears I have is when students have self-harm thoughts. According to Dr Jordan Peterson (a clinical psychologist), it often happens when students

1) lack purpose (and therefore lack routines);

2) lack relationships (such as friends); and 

3) have health/addiction problems.

These factors may be related to each other.

How does this affect my teaching?

This means that students who suffer from school refusal are at-risk of self-harm. As educators, we should take note of students who lack routines, friends and have health problems.

For more information:

Do not do this cool thing

Often when giving instructions to students, we are frustrated when they don't listen to us.

One of the reasons is that we teachers do not explain the rationale of our instructions and portray misbehaviour as "cool". Let's look at the following:

"Bring the scissors to me. Don't stab yourself."

"Climb down the ladder rung by rung. Don't jump off."

"Stay on the escaltor, Don't slide down the handles."

"Stay healthy. Don't smoke like those losers in the poster above."

In each instruction, the teacher is giving a "cool" idea to the student, without explaining the danger of the misbehaviour.

Let's remember to keep explaining to our students.