Do we take students seriously?

Cover story in today’s NYT: “Record Level of Stress Found in College Freshman.” Find it here.

The article itself is a good FYI for us. But the last couple paragraphs are fascinating and worth reflection – at least they were for me.

In addition, Professor Sax has explored the role of the faculty in college students’ emotional health, and found that interactions with faculty members were particularly salient for women. Negative interactions had a greater impact on their mental health.

“Women’s sense of emotional well-being was more closely tied to how they felt the faculty treated them,” she said. “It wasn’t so much the level of contact as whether they felt they were being taken seriously by the professor. If not, it was more detrimental to women than to men.”

She added: “And while men who challenged their professor’s ideas in class had a decline in stress, for women it was associated with a decline in well-being.”

Students (and according to this article, especially young women) really look up to us, see themselves in the mirror that we are for them. Specific, concrete words from us validating students’ efforts and achievements likely go a lot farther than we think they do. The term “taken seriously by the professor” really struck me. Kids need validation that their efforts at being good academics are paying off. Partly I’m struck by this because last night at my guitar lesson my teacher said in a heart-felt manner, “That was really good. I really mean that.” I’m a very slow learner and often feel like I disappoint the teacher. So, his words (whether true or not) have made my heart lighter, and made me really dig into the practice of my new song this morning.

How many of my students feel like they usually disappoint me? How can I try to make more students know that I “take them seriously” as young academics? We teachers are powerful!