Respect. Responsibility. Compassion. Self-discipline. These are all the virtues we’ve been taught since kindergarten. Basically reminding us of how we are supposed to treat others the way we’d want to be treated, or as others would simply put it: the golden rule.
However, it seems students are losing a little respect, and their self-discipline seems to fade when they walk into class and see a substitute sitting in the place of their normal teacher.
What makes us treat a substitute differently than our teacher? They are both there to help us learn. It’s not like the sub is out to get us and planned some long assignment we have to complete in order to make us suffer. Our teacher is the one who planned it and the sub is just there to enforce it.
Although they may look or act differently, we should still respect them. Not to mention, that the sub has never done anything to us and we barely even know them, but yet we treat them like they are below us.
Despite the situation they’re our elders and we should show them that we aren’t some inconsiderate generation who couldn’t care less about anyone other than ourselves.
“Sometimes, it makes it difficult to respect the sub because we know that that person isn’t our teacher,” freshman Gabbi Miller said. “This way, kids can mess with them and think they won’t have any long-term consequences.”
Although it does depend on who is standing before us on a certain day, the treatment from the students to the subs is all the same. We think that because our teacher isn’t there that we can do whatever we want, just sit in class and gossip with our friends or play Temple Run on our phone and not do anything that requires lifting a pencil. We think we can make our own rules and the sub can’t do anything about it.
“The thing I don’t like about subs though is that, when they write a report, they usually blame the whole class for the bad behavior,” Miller said.
Ever heard of the saying, “what goes around comes around?” By us disrespecting our sub, they then tell the teacher and therefore it only results in us getting in trouble.
However, if we give subs the same respect we give our regular teacher, the sub wouldn’t have to write a bad report. It’s a two way street and this is exactly where our kindergarten virtues come into play. Respect our elders by treating others the way you’d want to be treated.
It’s not that hard to suck it up for a class period and behave like the mature young adults we are.
We aren’t in elementary school anymore so we should stop acting like it.
