STUDENTS-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP AND THE EFFECT IT HAS ON STUDENT’S PERFORMANCE IN THEIR EXAMS (EDUCATION PROJECT TOPICS AND MATERIALS)
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
An ever-changing world seeks advancement in every aspect of life including education. Since it is recognized that the level of education in the developed world is far higher than in the developing countries, it stands to reason that education has an important role to play in the evolution of developing countries. Our present education system indicates that knowledge should be disseminated by the teacher to students. This means that teachers select subject materials, textbooks and references, design the framework of the subject, conceptualize, analyze and synthesize the subject matter and present it face-to-face to students .
Meyer & Turner (2002) discussed their findings illustrating the importance of students’ and teachers’ emotions during instructional interactions. They determined that “through studying student-teacher interactions, our conceptualization of what constitutes motivation to learn increasingly has involved emotions as essential to learning and teaching” (p.107). Their results provide support for further study of the inclusion of interpersonal relationships in the instructional setting and to what degree those relationships affect the students’ learning environment. The quality of the relationship between a student and the teacher will result in a greater degree of learning in the classroom according to Downey (2008). Mohrman, Tenkasi, & Mohrman, (2003) assert “lasting change does not result from plans, blueprints, and events, rather change occurs 3 through interaction of participants” (p. 321). Strong teacher-student relationships may be one of the most important environmental factors in changing a child’s educational path (Baker, 2006)
Both a student and a teacher should be aware that a school is a place to learn when they enter the school building every day. Apart from this, it is the job of the students as well as the teachers to make sure that the relationship the two have is a good one. If a student is constantly giving a teacher a rough time about everything, the student cannot have a good relationship with the teacher. The student-teacher relationship is like a bridge that connects knowledge, experience and efficiency of a teacher to bring out the potentiality of a student with his/her aspirations. The distance between the two should be the distance we cross the bridge. Apart from the syllabus allotted to the students, the teachers should give information about the critical society in which they are living. For this, they should not be confined themselves to the work of completing their allotted portions but they are supposed to introduce the students to a wider knowledge of the world in which they are living.
