Staff Editorial | The Chronicle
A wave of newer and younger teachers are being hired to work at Mason High School (MHS). With shared interests in music, clothes and the latest TikTok trends, these teachers can make classrooms feel less intimidating for students, a shift in a learning environment that makes it more comfortable to take risks, ask questions and interact with learning. But that comfort sometimes makes students forget where the line is.
Teachers can be friendly. But they are not our friends.
Young teachers deserve the same respect and boundaries as any other MHS teacher. Students confuse being relatable and approachable, but that does not mean that teachers owe constant friendliness and access into their personal lives, or that younger teachers need to hide their personalities, their interests and their hobbies from their students. Rather, students need to understand that seeing a teacher’s personality does not make them less professional. Younger teachers at our school should not be pressured into choosing between being respected and being themselves.
Students need to remember that respect for teachers does not change with age. Being young does not mean a teacher has not earned their position. Many are still finding their groove in a career that requires energy and patience, especially when they need to be both the approachable “good cop” and the strict “bad cop.”
Mason talks a lot about how teachers build connections with students, but rarely do we talk about or enforce that students respect those boundaries in return. The best learning environments stem from when teachers can be both relatable and professional. But that balance can only occur if students give these teachers the respect they deserve.
With social media, that line can get even blurrier for students. It is easy to forget that teachers have lives outside of the classroom. Teachers’ online accounts, posted photos, and old videos are not a student’s business, and they deserve the same privacy that we all expect for ourselves. Respect is not something that stops when the bell rings at 2:30. It should carry into the digital space, too.
The problem is not that teachers are too open or too young. The problems lie in students who do not know where the fine line is. A comment about their hobby should make the teacher feel like they are walking on a tightrope between connecting with their students and being respected. From what I have seen, most students do an amazing job of treating their younger teachers with respect and professionalism. But this is for the small minority who think that the teachers are “one of us.” They are not. At the end of the day, they are trying to teach us.
Teachers are not our friends, and that is okay! Younger teachers infuse something very special into MHS culture: empathy, energy and a care for connection. But they can only do this if students remember not to cross the line. We have to remember that relatability is nice, but respect is necessary.
