Every day, when she would line us up to go home, she would hand out candy to everyone, except me, because I did not finish my writing assignment. She even used me as an example for the rest of the class and said I never get a piece of candy, because I don 't get my work done. On the rare occasions where I would finish, that would be the only time she would have anything positive to say to me. She would have me pick my candy first, and told me how great I was that day. She only reserved those kind words when I, by some miracle, finished by writing worksheet. According to our text, "the process of judging and rewarding is not respectful; it emphasizes the power…differences between the person giving the reward and the person hoping to get one… This focus on the rules does not take into consideration the reason the rule was broken; the… contexts of the behavior are ignored (Fields, 207)." If Mrs. Haire asked me questions about my work instead of simply praising me when I did, she would have learned the reason why I was finishing my work. Eventually, my mom, who was still in Canada for the first month or so of school, had a parent-teacher conference with Mrs. Haire …show more content…
The student-teacher relationship is extremely important to all students, as we saw in Oprah 's piece on Breaking Down Barriers. During the crossing the line activity, the students were told to cross the line if they have felt personally victimized by a student or teacher in the classroom. The teacher-student relationship in the school was damaged by teachers who were guilty of humiliating, and bullying their students. This causes a distrust between student and teacher and creates negative behavior. Children need a positive relationship with their teachers to develop their self-esteem, confidence, and to feel like they are in a safe place (Fields, 82 ). When I was in the eleventh grade, my teacher damaged our relationship. She began to do everything she could to ensure I would not score above a seventy-five on my assignments in her English class. At first, she was very picky about my grammar. I began to have my papers edited by my dad, who would send my paper to his English teacher friends to receive a second opinion. When my grades weren 't improving, my dad scheduled a parent-teacher conference to figure out where the problem lied. She refused to tell us what was wrong, and repeated many times that she had a master 's degree and English is subjective. It wasn 't until then we found out she didn 't have as much of a problem with my work, as she did with me. Because she let prejudges toward me