NRHEG Star Eagle

137 Years Serving the New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva Area
Newspaper of Record for NRHEG School District
Newspaper of Record for Waseca County, MN
PO Box 248 • New Richland, MN 56072

507-463-8112
email: steagle@hickorytech.net
Published every Thursday
Yearly Subscription: Waseca, Steele, and Freeborn counties: $52
Minnesota $57 • Out of state $64

Students sometimes ask who my favorite class was that I’ve taught. It’s an easy answer. I had a section of seniors from the Class of 1998 that were outstanding. I never had a discipline problem and everyone always completed their work. That’s tough to beat!

I received a request from a student to write about favoritism from teachers. I wasn’t sure how to go about that at first, but after some cogitation, I’ve got a few ideas.

First, there is a big difference between having favorites and favoritism. Any teacher who tells you he or she doesn’t have favorite students is lying.

As both a teacher and a coach, my favorites are the students and players who work hard and don’t complain. My favorites are the ones who come ready to work without question. My favorites work to the best of their ability, even if they’re not A students or all-star athletes.

Personality can have a lot to do with this too. It’s always amazing to hear about a teacher having problems with a particular student, and I think that I’ve never had issues with that person. However, sometimes personalities mesh better between some students and certain teachers.

I like to laugh. I try to keep my classroom somewhat relaxed; no need for a dictatorial standard when trying to learn.

Enter into this room one Alex Blaschko. I’ve had Alex in class for two years now, and it’s been a hoot. Alex often has something funny to say, whether he means to or not. However, Alex works very hard in my class, even though English is not his strongest subject. 

He asks questions and tries to do the work correctly. Does Alex get away with saying a bit more than others? Perhaps, but if it contributes to a good classroom atmosphere, sometimes that’s okay.

A great example from my coaching days was when I coached Mariah Robran in 8th grade basketball. Mariah was not going to score 20 points a game, but she worked her tail off for me and fought her way into my starting lineup. She also knocked me on my can a number of times during practice drills! These are the players that coaches enjoy having on their teams.

Is it okay to have favorites? Sure, it’s only human to like some people more than others.

Now favoritism? That’s a whole different ballgame.

One of my first years at NRHEG, a contingent of boys from my seventh grade class went to Mr. Cyr to claim that I favored the girls. A short time after that, he received a visit from a group of girls claiming that I favored the boys. Well, which was it? If they both thought the other gender was being favored, there must not have been an issue. Case closed.

If, as a teacher, I let someone get away with egregious behavior or grade that person on an easier standard or treat someone as a much lesser being, that is not acceptable.  Let’s look at some examples.

I was accused one year by a mother of favoring a different boy on my baseball team because one of his parents was on the school board. To her, this was the reason her own son wasn’t getting as much playing time. I was quick to point out that the other boy had been suspended for a game because of bad grades, just like some others. It didn’t matter who his parents were; if he broke a rule, he would face the same consequences. If I had let that kid off because of who his parents were, that would have been favoritism.

I had a former teacher of mine admit to me once that he would only glance over my papers. He just assumed they were A work since I always tended toward that. I was furious.

Often, favorites of teachers tend to get better grades. I’ve gone the route of being pickier on the papers of students who do well consistently. I always want to push them further. If I did what my former teacher had done, that would be favoritism. I could have written a bunch of glop in the middle of a paper and still gotten an A!

Is there favoritism at our school? I hope not. Do teachers have favorites? Absolutely. Hopefully that line does not blur.

Word of the Week: This week’s word is corraded, which means scraped together from various places, as in, “The teacher was not pleased reading the clearly corraded research paper.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!

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