Written and designed by the staff of the Center for Teaching and Learning. Reproduce with permission only.
The roles of teacher and student seem simple and straightforward, but to be a successful teacher, there are ambiguous areas in the relationship that you will need to define. The relationship has been compared to that of lawyer and client or doctor and patient the teacher is an expert providing a special service to clients who should be treated with professional courtesy and respect. However, good teaching also requires the development of a personal interest in students, so teachers must balance detached professionalism with personal friendship. Perhaps the traditional ideal of "Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a student on the other" remains the best goal for us all.
If you are a graduate student or a new assistant professor, you are probably closer in age to undergraduates than the majority of faculty members, and this condition can work for you or against you in your teaching. You are more likely to share some of the undergraduate's values, interests, and tastes, giving you an edge in communicating with them. On the other hand, it may be more difficult to distance yourself from them and avoid becoming a "buddy"; Eventually, you will have to evaluate their work and assign grades, activities which are difficult enough without the ethical burdens imposed by this kind of relationship. Teachers should strive for an arm's length distance from students close enough to be helpful and friendly, but far enough away that you don't feel any inappropriate obligations to them.
As a new teacher, there is a possibility that your insecurities about teaching could affect your relationship with students, but you will soon discover that most of your fears are groundless. For example, stage fright usually evaporates by the end of the first week as you learn your students' names and the class is no longer a room full of strangers. Some new teachers are afraid that students will ask questions about the material that they can't answer, but in fact this rarely occurs. If you don't know the answer to a question, admit it and promise to provide the answer in the next class they will respect your intellectual honesty (but be sure to follow through on your promise to preserve your credibility). Similarly, UNC students are not generally unruly in class and they are rarely rude or challenging to their instructors; indeed, the problem is not how to handle unruly students but rather how to arouse their intellectual curiosity and encourage discussion and debate. Remember, you begin each semester with the good will and respect of your students. They will forgive many mistakes if you show them you care about their success in the course and try to be just and fair in your evaluation of them.
Your relationship with students should focus on facilitating learning, not on developing social ties, but there are many arenas in which learning can take place. For instance, if students want to continue a discussion in the snack bar after class, it can be an excellent opportunity to expand your teaching role beyond the limits of the classroom and also get to know students better. Be cautious, however, in meeting students for purely social pursuits, since social interactions tend to encourage the confiding of personal problems and the development of more intimate relationships. Remember, for most students the college experience is their first time away from home, and the university is a large, unfamiliar institution. Many students are seeking the kind of intimacy and caring they enjoyed back home, and if you try to meet their emotional needs you may find yourself drawn into inappropriate relationships. Listening to their personal problems with sympathy and understanding helps them handle the stress of school, and counseling a student in this way once or twice is probably appropriate. But if the student makes it a weekly ritual, it may be difficult for you to exercise good judgment about making exceptions to course requirements or assigning grades.
In your attempts to distance yourself from your students, avoid becoming too authoritarian. Students already see teachers (at least initially) as authority figures, so the role can easily be overplayed. Being too rigid is just as bad as being too flexible. Beware also of trying to impress students with your erudition--they know so much less than you about your subject that you will only appear pedantic or even pompous. A danger sign of this condition is the tendency to ridicule students' questions and comments. Ridicule and sarcasm will quickly alienate the class and stifle any student incentive to engage in dialogue.
Despite your best efforts, you should accept the fact that, for one reason or another, you may develop personality conflicts with a few students. If this happens, remember that the classroom is not an appropriate place to air these conflicts. As soon as you become aware of the problem, try to settle it with the student one-on-one, preferably in neutral territory such as the cafeteria.
Another part of your role as a teacher involves advising students on various problems. Although it is natural to want to help others in need, you should try to make a distinction between problems related to schoolwork (about which it would be appropriate to provide advice) and personal problems (about which it would be inappropriate to offer advice even if you were a trained counselor). In other words, if a student is not performing well because of poor study habits, you can suggest ways to improve those habits, but if a student comes to you for advice about emotional problems (e.g. depression, anxiety, phobias), listen sympathetically and refer them to the Student Health Service or the Carolina Wellness Service. For more specific information on referrals to student support services, consult the Campus Resource Guide published by CTL.
Finally, be flexible about deadlines or course requirements in the face of extraordinary circumstances, but be firm when confronted by importunate appeals to your soft heart. For example, if a student misses a test because of a medical problem, death in the family, car accident, or similar unanticipated emergency, he or she should be allowed to make up the test (or perform some equivalent task such as writing a paper) given appropriate verification of the emergency. If verification is not possible, you will have to use your judgment about the student's honesty based on previous performance in class and what you know about him or her (another good reason to get to know your students personally). On the other hand, missing a test because he or she decided to stay at the beach an extra day after Spring Break cannot be justified by any amount of pleading.
Cheating raises special problems in the relationship between teacher and student because it is both a breach of trust and a violation of the educational contract. Surveys suggest that an overwhelming majority of undergraduates have cheated at some point in their academic careers, and, in spite of all precautions, every teacher will eventually have to confront the problem. Nevertheless, there are things you can do to prevent cheating. Experts who have studied the problem generally agree that students are more likely to rationalize cheating if the teacher appears indifferent about testing practices, if the class is large and the conditions impersonal, and if the stakes are high and the risks are low.
Common sense dictates that tests should be monitored, especially in large classes, and that reasonable care be taken to remove temptation. For example, you can distribute two or more different forms of the same test and spread students out with empty desks between them. Using the same tests year after year is an invitation to cheating, since it is impossible to insure complete test security (as many fraternity files prove).
Cheating occurs less frequently in smaller classes, and some authorities suggest it is because the atmosphere is more personal and students feel greater constraints against violating the teacher's trust. It is possible to establish such a relationship even in large classes, as some teachers at UNC amply demonstrate, and thereby improve teaching effectiveness and help prevent cheating at the same time.
Poorly-designed tests and written assignments can also foster cheating. Exams that are tricky, require recall of vast amounts of factual information. The focus on obscure facts in the text invite cheating because, from the students' viewpoint, the teacher is not playing fair. Exams should assess the achievement of important course goals, not the ability to memorize facts or to see through trick questions. Questions should follow the guidelines for educational measurement outlined in the handbook section on testing. If you assign massive research papers without providing for a periodic review of student progress in the form of outlines, bibliographies, and first drafts, you make plagiarism easy, if not inevitable.
Beyond tests, students truly may not understand what is meant by cheating. Teachers often hold different opinions on the subject, and if students are told it is all right to help each other on a writing assignment in one class, they may think it is fine to do so in every class. Plagiarism is a particularly thorny issue, because teachers in different fields may themselves disagree about the exact definition. To prevent any misunderstandings, it is wise to include in your syllabus a definition of plagiarism and a discussion of the boundary between cheating and fair help in course assignments.
Removing conditions that foster cheating will help prevent widespread dishonesty but won't eliminate the problem altogether, so you should be aware of the procedures for handling violations of the Honor Code at UNC. The Instrument of Student Judicial Governance sets forth very specific rules for dealing with cheating, and it is important to note your responsibility under the system. For example, if you have evidence that a student has cheated, you cannot handle the matter yourself; it must be reported to the Office of Student Affairs or the Student Attorney General as an Honor Code violation. The Honor Court will determine the nature and extent of the punishment, if any. (Of course, you should talk to the student about the matter before reporting the violation.) We have reproduced important parts of the Instrument of Judicial Governance in this handbook, including the section on Faculty Responsibility, but you can get a complete copy by contacting the Office of the Dean of Students.
Most of the rules regarding relationships between a teacher and student are common sense. Teachers should never, under any circumstances, date their students (even if the student initiates the idea). A male teacher should never meet a female student in seclusion and should always leave the office door open when talking to a female student. Teachers should not make sexually suggestive remarks to students, even facetiously. These kinds of transgressions could be violations of the University's sexual harassment policy. A copy of the policy is available in each academic department, and we have included a portion of it in the chapter on University Policies and Guidelines.
Occasionally a student will develop an infatuation with a teacher, either as a romantic interest or as an academic role mode. This situation can give rise to damaging rumors and even hurt your academic career, so it is important to treat the problem when it first arises. Initially, the symptoms of infatuation may be difficult to detect, especially if you are accustomed to having students consult you frequently outside of class. However, if you discover that a particular student takes up most of your office time, frequently calls you at home, and arranges to be in your path when you cross campus, you should take action to reduce the intensity of that interest.
Become less available to the student by restricting the time you allow him or her to spend in your office and by keeping telephone conversations to one or two minutes (an answering machine can help you screen calls). When talking to the student, be extremely businesslike and detached and discourage social talk. Let other teachers know about the problem and how you are dealing with it, since they may have suggestions for handling the situation and disclosure will help squelch incipient rumors. If you find you must raise the problem directly with the student, be sure to use a sensitive but firm approach. Explain your professional role and the responsibilities of both teacher and student. Show the student that you care for him or her as a student, but clarify the limits of your caring. If psychological counseling seems necessary, offer to arrange it with the appropriate agency.
Teachers should treat all students with courtesy and dignity, regardless of gender, race, class, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, politics, or other personal attribute. Higher education is committed to the principle that intellectual debate should occur free from reference to the personal characteristics of the debaters, and if a student is embarrassed, demeaned, or debased by something that a teacher does, education has been poorly served. Telling sexist jokes or discriminating against students in grading because of their religion are examples of blatant insensitivity or prejudice, but there are more subtle forms of bias, both conscious and unconscious.
For example, research has shown that male professors have a tendency to call on male students more often, to ask them higher-order questions, and to wait for answers from them longer than they do for female students. White professors have been known to confuse the names of black students in their classes for an entire semester. These problems may be just as damaging to education as the more flagrant violations mentioned above. None of us is free from prejudice, but we should strive to eliminate it from our classrooms.
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Last updated: January 30, 2001