Teacher Corner 1: You Are A Teacher, Establish Your Authority!

Teaching is not just about how to transfer knowledge to students. Teaching means transferring knowledge in an effective way and how a teacher organizes classroom management, one of which is by disciplining students. This is the philosophy that I believe as a teacher. It may be very difficult to establish discipline in the classroom if a teacher does not have the authority to organize a class. The learning process will also not work effectively if the teacher is not given an authority to organize, manage and direct every aspect of the teaching activity. Therefore, establishing authority as a teacher in the classroom is essential for teachers and students to succeed in learning. However, it should be underlined that the authority I am referring to is not the authority as a ruler, but this is the authority as a teacher to discipline every student in the classroom.

You need to convey your status as a teacher

To establish authority, first, teachers must convey their status as a teacher to the students so that we are trusted by the students as their teachers who teaches them. Being a friendly teacher is fun, but for this it also has certain limitations. To convey the status of a teacher, we must behave as teachers who have a great responsibility to every student. This can be done with many things both from how we act, how we speak, and how we interact with them verbally and non verbally, such as gestures, eye contact to students and also with various activities in the learning process such as asking, commanding or questioning.

Perhaps, in view of the current society, the status of a teacher has been largely conveyed by the parents of the students; this is very profitable for teachers. Before students come to school parents and community habits have taught children that teachers in schools are the representatives of their parents. Of course, this has helped us as teachers to try to accept that status.

You need to know how to deal with misbehaving students

It is undeniable that the bad behavior of the students will be found wherever our we teach, either from students who quarrel with their classmates, students who interfere their friends, or caused by trivial problems. Therefore, we must have various strategies to deal with the problem. The more a teacher has competence in dealing with naughty students in the classroom, the more authority established to discipline the students.

Understanding the context of each student's problem in the classroom will make it easier for a teacher to find a way or solution in dealing with students' problems in the classroom. In this case, for every step taken by the teacher must be fair, both in terms of giving warning and punishment.

It should be underlined that if it is necessary to impose a punishment on naughty students, the teacher should consider also the type of punishment. The punishment should be aimed to educate the students to be more disciplined, the physical punishment is disallowed whatever the reasons are.

Teach your students competently

The last way to establish authority as a teacher is to teach them competently. Students will be more appreciative of you through your ability to teach. A teacher must show that he is competent with what is taught to the students, by showing them that you as their teacher have knowledge of the topic you are teaching. To have a competent skill in teaching them you need to plan and prepare the material you will teach, one of them is by creting effective lesson plans.

Often, if a teacher teaches incompetently, he or she will get insult from the student because the student is dissatisfied with the way the teacher taught. In this case, teaching students competently will build your authority as teachers because students feel satisfied with the way you teach them. It can also foster students' interests and enthusiasms to learn with you, and they willrespect you more as their teacher.

---

---

Regards,

@affiedalfayed
(a teacher and writer)

---

---