Latwell Nyangu

Youth Interactive Writer

Lecturing is not about information. It’s about having an honest intellectual relationship with your students. But what students lack in college is an intellectual relationship or conversation with their lecturers.

Everyone can point to a lecturer who made a difference in his or her life, and also to one who made life miserable for a short time.

And with everything at college, the purest and deeply inspirational relationships are that of a devoted lecturer and a willing student.

Almost everyone has a favourite lecturer and those we like less.

What causes us to still cherish these relationships and harbour powerful sentiments of respect and sometimes a shuddering dislike for those individuals who are responsible for mentoring us? The answer is quite simple. It’s how the student lecturer relationships are developed, nurtured and given space to evolve. And going to college I have always heard students talking about the lecturers they like and they hate. Of course, there are multiple factors that will influence student perception towards their lecturers, including context, expectations, experience and personality just to name a few.

And lecturers are people some will be more charismatic than others, some will have a greater ability to charm and get away with doing things others can’t.

But the core of education is the relationship between the lecturer, the student and the extent to which that relationship nurtures the longing of the product to matter in the world and the longing of the lecturer to nurture and fulfil that desire.

Fellow students as you reflect on the new semester this year, take a moment to ponder if you have a sour relationship with your lecturer.

Make it ring in your mind that hating a lecturer is wasting your time. It’s you who still lose in the end. Don’t create grudges with your lecturers. The good lecturer-student relationship is critical until the final day. At times as students we vent our anger at the people who take us through the whole course and this is very common.

The ability to forge a positive, powerful relationship between a student and lecturer may seem like a difficult task at first but can be easily accomplished by creating a strong learning environment.

My question is, when we hate our lecturers, what does it bring to us? Although we also have scenarios where the lecturers hate students. We still remain vulnerable.

Let’s create a good relationship with our lecturers and vice versa.

As I always tell people, I write what I see, not what I like. These incidents are happening at college and victims are always there while winners emerge as well.

In Shona, they say, usatuke garwe usati wabira rwizi (don’t attack a crocodile before you cross the river) and it’s true. Consequences of students hating their lecturers simply means they also hate the modules. But I have a question about what causes students to hate lecturers.

You came to college in pursuit of academic achievement, where did you get hate towards the lecturer whom you found at the institution?

There is no reward in hating a lecturer fellow students, just focus on your academics and leave.

Of course, both parties learn from each other and we are human beings, of course, we falter but college is just a learning place.

Do what you are supposed to do and leave.

Some students ended up thinking of at least a hundred things they would rather do at any given moment than attend a lecture due to a sour relationship with their lecturers. There are numerous reasons why students don’t attend lectures regularly. Some include that lectures can be deemed unnecessary while another reason is ability (or lack of) that the lecturer possesses. One more significant reason that lectures are so painful is the fact that students feel they have better things they could be doing with their time.

Most times, the learning is not a one-way process; an effective learning environment is where all individuals involved learn from each other. While students learn a particular subject from a lecturer, the lecturer learns how to improve their lecturing skills and make the lessons more interesting by gaining insights from the students.

Many qualities define a positive relationship and pave ways on how to create powerful student-lecturer relationships. 

These can be seen to include good communication, a safe learning environment and mutual respect, a positive and patient attitude, student equality and timely praise. The lecturer who becomes the favourite is one who possesses these in good measure, while some lecturers are hated.

But building rapport with your lecturers and establishing yourself as their students is an excellent way to combat chronic absenteeism.

Lecturers’ connection with students can also raise their intrinsic motivation to learn and when students feel interested in their work for the sake of mastering it, they develop a love of learning that will benefit them for their entire lives.

As a result, they are also more likely to have positive attitudes towards their lecturers, classes, and lessons.  

When students focus less on grades and more on mastery, they are on their way toward a successful college career. The link that lecturers establish with their students has an imperative role in a students’ academic development.

Poor lecturer-student relationships result from the instructor’s lack of awareness. Some students require tailored educational approaches since they do not respond to learning in the same way as others. When a lecturer fails to regard an individual student’s educational needs, relationship problems between lecturer and students arise.

Effective communication between lecturers and students can also strengthen their academic atmosphere, since these relationships are so closely tied to self-motivation, they can lead to an engaged classroom. There is an increasing need to comprehend the impact of the student-lecturer relationship in the institutions of higher education and training.

Student-lecturer relationships play an important role in both the lecturer and student experiences in higher education and have been found to be linked to learning, classroom management, and to student absenteeism. While it is clear the student-lecturer relationships are important, it is less clear how these relationships should be measured and conceptualised. Students and lecturers should remember that the classroom dynamic need not be one-directional.

Whether you are a lecturer or a student, bonding is usually difficult between these two because lecturers are seen majorly as disciplinarians. Still, it doesn’t deter lecturers from having a true relationship with their students.

But when true bonding occurs, the student feels the true joy of learning, self-esteem, self-motivation and knowing the importance of contributing to what the lecturer has been trying to teach.

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