My professional disposition is that every student can succeed if they are put in educational situations that make them uncomfortable. By this, I mean that students do a lot better when they are challenged, but not pushed too far beyond where they are comfortable learning at. This doesn’t mean that a teacher should teach their students like they are robots. Students are all individuals with different needs, and the best way to attune to those needs is by connecting personally with the students. This means that a teacher ought to find common ground between them and their students, such as a common interest or experience, and should use that commonality to better connect to their students. Doing this allows teachers to much better understand their students and form to their learning style.
When I began my education in the field of education, the way that I viewed the relationship between students and teachers was very different. I thought that teachers were a class above students and that they had no true care for students beyond their ability to learn.When I began my studies, I was a substitute teacher for high schools around my area. I realized that even someone as unattached as a substitute still wanted to connect with the students to see them succeed, and because of this, I quickly changed my views on this. While I don’t believe this is the case anymore, I do sometimes still believe that students believe it is true. Because of this, it is a goal of mine to ensure that students can see that at least one of their teachers is willing to get to know them better in order to improve not only their ability to learn but also to improve their ability to grow as an individual. The one area that I certainly need to improve on, however, is through involving all students directly in the learning process. This means that I need to not only have a personal connection to my students but to use this to ensure that they are learning the material that I need them to learn.