In seven days, we Andover students will set down our battered pencils, make the closing edits to our papers, and file out the doors from our last final. Winter term, for us, will have at last reached its conclusion. As students, our work will be done. But, at the same time, a different countdown begins, ticking down the days until final grades and comments are due and eventually published to Bluelink for us and our families to view. Although we will be resting, hanging out with friends, watching a movie, or perhaps on a plane somewhere, a different community of hundreds toils on: teachers, tasked with meticulously grading a mountain of essays, tests, and projects within just days.
The chaos of finals week is a ruthlessly familiar one, one which often forces us to reduce ourselves down to the fundamental systems of making it through the day. Faced with the culmination of ten weeks’ worth of content, finals week finds us searching for ways to push ourselves through assessment after assessment. Whether it be writing essays, taking tests, presenting projects, or something else, finals week can feel like an insurmountable mountain at times. Going through the frenzied motions of this last week can be stressful, strenuous, and anxiety-inducing; as the end of the term nears and the release of grades that are permanently printed into our transcripts looms ahead, it can become exceedingly easy to become lost in the work and pressure ahead. As we go from class to class during ultimate and finals week, the thought of major assessments may end up occupying our thoughts and taking us away from staying fully engaged with the present moment. In class, we may find ourselves studying problems, doing readings, or packing up early so we can get ready for our next class, where we might have an upcoming test. We may end up drawn into conversation with classmates about a question for an essay in another class. The thought of cutting a sports practice to squeeze in a few precious hours of studying can suddenly become extremely appealing.
But even beyond the particularly stressful circumstances of finals week, it is of the utmost importance that we treat our teachers with respect. All the time. Because we see them most in the context of a classroom, it’s often easy for us to subconsciously reduce them from real people with their own personal lives into solely their professional personas. Yet, just as we exist outside of our roles as students, whether it be our involvement in sports or clubs, our teachers take on a variety of identities that extend beyond the classroom. While we’re busy embodying our athletic side during track practice or tennis season, our teachers are similarly shifting to become coaches to guide us through drills and offer us valuable feedback. When we eat dinner at Commons as teenagers enjoying a meal with friends, our teachers become adults wanting to spend quality time with the people they care about. When we call our parents after a long day in search of comfort and the feeling of being a kid again, our teachers are also often tending to the emotional needs of their own families, for they too are parents, children, siblings, and friends in the same way that we are. Whether student or teacher, all of us have priorities and passions that don’t solely pertain to the academic environment we most commonly interact with one another in. In the same way that our teachers understand that we do not have unlimited time to study and complete work for their course, we should also be mindful to give back that same kind of courtesy and empathy that they demonstrate towards us.
Though what constitutes respect can look different depending on the setting or specific class dynamic, there are still baseline expectations that we should hold ourselves to and be able to meet consistently. For example: say ‘hello’ and ‘good morning’; don’t start packing up before the end of class when your teacher is still talking. Try not to have side conversations with your friends when your teacher is giving a lecture they spent energy and time on for the purpose of your learning. Always, always, always thank them when you leave. If they seem tired or sick, ask after their well-being. Don’t expect immediate replies to your emails, and understand that they can’t meet with you outside of class for extra help whenever you need. Be accommodating when extraneous circumstances emerge: accidents and emergencies happen, and your teacher, despite how superhuman their intelligence in the classroom might make them seem, has their bad days too. When we think about it, being courteous really just boils down to treating our teachers with the same kind of kindness we would our friends and any other adult in our lives. Yes, one of our most potent anxieties – our grades – lies in the hands of our teachers, but they are not the enemy. In our heads, it is imperative that our grades are separated from our teachers as people; an instructor who grades more harshly is not a worse person for it, and an instructor who is nicer with their grading is not inherently better. No matter how we are performing academically in a class, we should still show our teachers a level of empathy and respect that they have earned for being the main pillars behind our education and that they, just like any human, deserves.
