Why do some teachers feel the need to be referred to as doctor or professor?
We all understand that every educator is different; however, thoughts about the learning experience and teachers around campus differentiate between each student. Some enjoy the very warm and inviting professors who have personal attachments to students and others may learn best by a strict business approach to a class and to learning the material. This begs to answer a big question: What type of teaching by an educator is the most efficient?
Throughout campus there are the typical professors who need to be called doctor or professor because of the number of years they have put into a specific study, earning the right to become something a little bit more than a “Mr.” or a “Mrs.”. Years upon years of perfecting the craft gives some professors the entitlement of feeling a notch above everyone else. They have that right, but how does it affect students to feel below a professor instead of on equal footing? After all, shouldn’t everyone throughout campus be considered an adult?
For every “professor” there is an equal number of teachers — the teachers who allow one to call them by first names, and eventually throughout the semester tend to have more of a personal connection with students other than the typical business approach to schooling. The ones who understand what students are going through and the amount of stress put on them. Overall though, can students learn as much from a teacher as a professor? Of course they can; however, it feels as if more learning occurs by using the business type of class model.
Honestly, the preferred teaching method for me at least is more of a “teacher” approach to a class, one where the stress doesn’t build up inside to a boiling point. The business type of class model gets stagnate and boring after the first couple of weeks; you take notes, do homework and take tests. Nope, can’t handle it. I end up getting a lot more out of each class when I actually like the teacher and can understand where he is coming from. I mean, you have to spend a couple hours a week with them…might as well be sociable with them, right?
There is more to class than learning the material; it is using the material in the everyday world and succeeding from what information has been gained.