Role of Teacher in Determining the Academic Performance of Students - Reflective Essay

Introduction

Teachers who are not keen on understanding their students have often shown hostility towards the learners in cases of poor performances. This retrogressive behavior creates a hostile climate that greatly hinders learning and the general ability of students to attain their academic potentials. Learners who are harassed by teachers in their early school life experience fear, anger, confusion, self-doubt and a potential of social and academic incompetence. Due to the vulnerability of young learners, students who persistently experience hostility from teachers may end up with the feeling of worthlessness. Similarly, students who experience a lot of scolding from teachers end up feeling ashamed and powerless. In most circumstances, such students will find it difficult to establish good relationships within the school setup.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

I have had the experience of such feeling during my school time. It all started during my 9th grade. I always believed that I should never cheat on my homework and any wrong I made would be a way of learning. This reasoning, however, stopped when I got all my answers to a problem wrong. My teacher got furious and threw my homework across the classroom before making me sit on the floor until the class ended as a way of teaching me a valuable lesson. This was a traumatizing experience for me.

The experience received from 9th grade was however short-lived as I moved to LA's Hamilton High School in my 10th grade. My math teacher particularly was exceptionally different from my math teacher back in China. To me, she was a panacea of hope and encouragement as she would go out of her way to clarity of concepts for me. In retrospect to my teacher at 9th grade, she never at any given time exhibited tendencies of getting annoyed whenever I raised a question or sort clarification.

Her willingness to go out of her way in a bid to assist learners was manifested at the start of the semester. She gave a chance to any student with a question to go see her after school. I was one of the students who chose to go see her with questions. When I asked her to enlighten me on what symmetric graphs are, her explanation was full of zeal and devotion. She even used her arms and legs in a quest to provide me with a physical illustration of how symmetric graphs look like. The feeling I experienced as I walked out of her class was that of accomplishment, contrary to what I had experienced with my 9th-grade teachers. Since that day, I developed a different culture and I would stop by her class after school anytime I felt my understanding of a topic was unsatisfactory. These collaborative efforts went to fruition at the end of the semester when I attained an A for the first time in math. What the teacher nurtured in me saw me achieve A's in my math assignments and tests during my entire high school period.

Conclusion

Through a comparison of the experiences I went through in my schooling, I realized that if I try, I had the potentials of accomplishing a lot of things I initially deemed impossible. I also acknowledged that teachers play a vital role in determining the academic performance of their students. Conflicting heavily with my 9th-grade class, my classmates in 11th grade looked up to me when they needed assistance in solving complex homework. Given my experiences, I hoped to be part and parcel of the teaching and training programs at the Academy. This view is premised on my belief that the quality of teachers has a direct impact on how the students thrive academically. I am excited and look forward to helping learners who experience challenges in math as well as share my experience with my fellow undergraduates who are passionate about teaching. Given the chance to get trained and be part of the teachers at the Academy, I will commit myself to assist struggling student, progress and cultivate their love for math. If given the opportunity to get trained and teach at the Academy, I'll be sure to do my best to help struggling students succeed and improve their attitudes toward math.