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model :
Ida Nufary
some students from SDN
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How to make your Students Love You
HOW TO BE ATTRACTIVE
It is never automatic for your students to grow feeling of
attractiveness for you. They are not just interested in you merely
because you are cute or handsome. Well, of course, that would help a
lot. But, there are more to attraction than just being physically
attractive. Being born with admirable physical qualities is of course an
advantage, and being less attractive than the commonly accepted
standards can be really diminishing, especially if it has something to
do with teaching.
You possibly get to meet your students on daily basis. The subject you
are teaching does not really help you with your attempt of being
attractive. The subject can be overly challenging or lamely boring.
Well, it’s your job as a teacher to make your subject highly
interesting. But, it is also your responsibility to make YOU attractive.
Being an attractive teacher may help your students understand your love
for your major and why they should follow suit.
To be attractive is one thing, to make your students grow love for you
is another. Fortunately, attraction is one big step for your students to
finally decide that you deserve their love. So, indeed, the title is
just a gimmick, reading this would not help you gain your students love.
It will, however, help you gain your students attention to watch you
and get interested in you on a very personal level, so personal they do
not recognize their feelings grow and coming the way you have designed
it to be.
Yes. You can plan this and you can design ways to get your students attraction over you and, with high hope, over your subjects.
As I set out before, if you happen to be luckily born with positive
physical traits, it would a great advantage. You need to use it wisely,
because the more important things are coming. I have to warn you before
reading ahead of the fact that I never came up with this idea; it’s a
cumulative understanding after years of extensive experiments and
research. I read a lecture transcript of a psychology class on the web*
and interested to apply the principles for manipulating your students
into thinking that you are attractive for them. In the lecture,
professor Peter is talking about attraction in general, I wonder if
there is a way to accommodate the principles for classroom use.
Alright, so the first is being born handsome. Unfortunately, not
everyone can get that. Let us assume you are just born as a mediocrity
in terms of physical traits. People do not find you handsome, you pack
some fat on your belly, and you are definitely not well-built and
totally not tall. If you are a woman, you may find yourself overly
chubby, you are not the sexiest creature on earth, and people find you
just as any mother can be (yes, they think you are a mother). OK, that’s
not a nice picture of mediocrity, but we they shall suffice for our
purpose.
Point taken: you are not handsome. Let’s not get down with this because
the first three factors I am going to elaborate later are actually quite
favorable even for not so handsome teacher. They are similarity,
familiarity and proximity.
SIMILARITY
Do not make an exhaustive list of things you like and things you don’t
like and compare it with each of your students similar lists. It may be
useful for future references, but it would kill the very purpose of
designing these steps to lead your students into believing you are
attractive. Instead, you have to find things your students like and like
them yourself.
It is not only about like and dislike, though. The point is you have to
find common ground on which you can agree with and if there is no such
thing, create one.
FAMILIARITY
Talk their language, cut off formality. You have to be someone they can
easily associate with in their daily life. The goal is to make them
think of you every seconds of their life. Well, there are many practical
ways to do these, but you really have to think it through. Being
familiar with someone can also means having your things in their house,
or your picture, business cards, and the list can go on. What you have
to do is to remind them of you even when you are not physically there
with them.
PROXIMITY
Get close to them. You above everything else should be easy to reach.
They should not be bound to make an appointment just to see you. Put it
simply your availability for them is incessant. Do not take holidays
unless you really have to even when you are not teaching. It shows to
them that you are close to them even when you are not in class. You are
close to them not only when you are teaching.
Three less interesting factors to make your students love you are
similarities, familiarities and proximity. Those three should add more
power to your innate handsomeness. But, there are three more as I have
promised to elaborate. These three should be done with caution and
well-planned if you want to play with your students’ mind.
START LOWER, END HIGHER!
First impression is everything for teachers. Of course, you can always
improve your reputation as time goes by, but strong image are gained in
the very first meeting you. You can research on how to present yourself
positively your own, I will not elaborate them here, and my point is as
follows.
You should start lower and grow your love gradually and this stages of
your care for your students growing higher and higher over a period of
time is a compulsory factor. Remember, starting low never means giving
low impression on the first meeting. You should show the best in you on
their first vision of you and as time goes by you should reveal the
better part of you. Starting really high would catch their attention but
it is a huge responsibility to get it even higher for the coming
meetings. Yet, it is possible.
TAKE THE BLUNDER
This is called the blunder effect. Incompetent teachers are lame. Over
competent teacher is intimidating. No one likes a smart-ass know-all
kind of guy, nor do they like a dumb, stupid teacher. They adore our
competence of teacher, sometimes if you are an English teacher and
occasionally talk about math or physics, that would be lovely. They will
see you as a competent individual. That you are meant to be a teacher,
regardless of the subject, you just happen to love English more.
Let us get back to the blunder effect. When you are overly competent,
that is you never make a single mistake, you never humiliate yourself in
front of your students, you are just as lame as an incompetent teacher.
You are boring.
You know the reason why our president is even more popular, or likely to
be notorious – but the fame factor is still there, right? – after the
issue of Century Bank is heated by the media. Even the most seemingly
flawless person must fall some times. Take Bill Clinton, after Lewinsky,
he really takes the plunge into popularity. People will think, “well,
he is human, after all. Nobody’s perfect.”
Right, nobody’s perfect, perfection is intimidating. So, once in a while
you as a teacher should take the blunder. Make silly mistakes,
humiliate yourself. Words of caution, though, take the blunder only when
your students already perceive you as a competent individual, all
things being equal.
All things being equal is tricky, because that means you have to possess
previous factors such as similarity, familiarity and proximity along
with your gradual revelation of you as an individual before you can take
the blunder. So, make sure you really are competent, your students
think so, and then, take the blunder. So goes the blunder effect.
MISATTRIBUTE!
This one is really interesting. Have you ever heard a girl who is going
out on a date with a guy, and by the end of the date the girl decides to
start seeing the guy more often? They have coffee, and fifteen to
twenty minutes later, the guy starts holding her hands, and she feels
her heartbeat climbing. It’s not the hand, it’s the coffee. The girl
misattributes the hand for the coffee.
You, too, teachers, need to make your students misattribute their bodily
symptoms occasionally. Make their heartbeat run faster before you start
the day. Make them excited before tests. Stretch out a bit before you
start a game. It’s not only heartbeat. it’s everything a classroom
atmosphere you can control ranging from music to lighting. It’s pretty
awesome way to start a class anyway.
Do not forget that by having proximity with your students, get close
with your students, you can widen the domain of their misattribution to
outside your class. Be creative.
So here I am. Most of my students love me. They don’t know why. They
just do. What they do not know, their minds are playing tricks on them,
and I have the key to their mind. OK, I am bubbling and I am proud of
myself. Perhaps, they don’t love me that deeply, perhaps they don’t love
me at all. I am sure, though, although I am not handsome, short and
chubby (although that’s kind of cute…) that they are so attracted to me
that they never want to leave my class. That’s enough as a start.
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http://oyc.yale.edu/yale/psychology/introduction-to-psychology/content/transcripts/transcript09.html
