Mahmut Deniz
Pedagophobia Among Young English
Learners
Effects
of Ex-Teachers and Pedagophobia on Young
English Learners
Abstract
Teaching a language to children
could be really hard due to the problems they faced in the past. According to
90 out of 120 teenage students, the discontentment and reluctance with English
classes was due to their bad experiences with their ex-teachers. Students were
psychologically affected and thus automatically reacted every situation in
biased way in classrooms as most of the students who took the survey were still
feeling timid against their teachers despite friendly approach of the teacher
towards students. The students' situation turned out to be closely related to "Pedagophobia"
which, in psychology, means "Fear of Teachers". Embarrassment, fear
and, in some cases, misunderstanding were the reasons for the participants students
to have the effects of pedagophobia.
Besides, most of the students believed that their teachers were a role model
for them, thus teachers' behaviors in class were crucial for the students, so
they were also affected by the acts of their teachers in the class which
brought them one step closer to the pedagophobia. Although
their perspective may change over the time by meeting new and adaptable
teachers in the future, this might take a very long time which may eventually
cause students to lose their time by accommodating themselves with the new
conditions. To understand if the participant students had the effects of pedagophobia and in order to basically find
out the problem and comprehend the cause of pedagophobia,
an interview was held along with some questionnaire. 90 chosen students who took
the survey confirmed that they were afraid of their teachers for a number of
reasons. "The Oracle Education
Foundation" prepared a worldwide online survey including one specific
in-school survey to find the "fear
in kids". In their surveys, they found out that teachers had an essential
role in children's fear. Furthermore, in-school survey proved that children had
the fear because they were "being scolded by their teachers"(Appendix
3). The results of the surveys by "The Oracle Education Foundation"
provided the study solid examples that students indeed experienced fear and
were affected by it in the classrooms.
Introduction
Pedagophobia
or "Fear of Teachers" is kind of symptom that is developed within
students overtime as they are mistreated, insulted or harassed by their
teachers. "Fear of Teachers" was mostly considered as a must in most
of the underdeveloped countries in Africa back in "Colonial times".
Prof. Maathai claims in an interview found in a magazine Kenya National Assembly Official Record that "the way we were
introduced into schools and into the education system, was to instill fear of
teachers and authority in us"(Kenya National Assembly Official Record
2007). With the help of this approach students were meant to be kept under
control and obey their teachers or authorities while their freedom of thinking
and speaking totally restricted. The idea of the "Fear of Teachers"
was used as a secret weapon which legalized the situation of being restricted
and dominated in classroom, that is, Prof. Maathai adds "Until very
recently, teachers used that approach to instill what they said was discipline
into children by caning them" (Kenya National Assembly Official Record
2007). This might seem very reasonable to some of us, as the discipline is
thought to be necessary to maintain the order in the classroom to be able to
give children what is necessary. However, discipline could also make students
easily fade their education background away and let them manage to leave the
school graduated with only desired knowledge and grades because, this phobia
that rooted in children psychology through discipline is not easy to eradicate
and leaves a bad impression in students' mind.
Besides, it is thought to have serious negative consequences on
children, because "There is no reason why children should have fear of
teachers or authority because fear kills creativity"( Kenya National Assembly
Official Record 2007).
According to Prof. Maathai the key
point for students to benefit from the education sufficiently is that they
"need to be able to communicate and dialogue with their teachers"(
Kenya National Assembly Official Record 2007) and children who are taught
through discipline and fear of teacher "whether in primary or
secondary" (Kenya National Assembly Official Record 2007) consent to
handle their problems on their own and "they act in mobs when they are
dissatisfied, whether with food, the way they are being taught or the
dormitories" (Kenya National Assembly Official Record 2007) while, at this
stage, they are expected to consent or communicate their teachers.
The method that was used throughout
the history to keep the student under the control forcibly caused the students
to think that lessons are to be learnt only by force, and the knowledge that is
aimed to instill into the children is lost, because they learn only because
their teachers want them to. According to the interview, Pedagophobia
or "Fear of Teachers, is mostly caused by mistreating teachers. Students
are mostly afraid their teachers may bully them in front of the class, which is
also considered to be kind of violence by students. Furthermore, the base fear,
which is " Fear of Teachers" gives birth to other problems along with
it which are " fear of examination, and fear of talking before the
class" (Yadav 159). As it is pointed out "None of these is necessary,
all are destructive to either progress in school or normal personal
development, and all are learned from experiences in school"(Yadav
159). The solution for this problem is
claimed to be that "a good teacher should be able to eliminate this fear
by making class work informal and by giving special help to those who are
apprehensive" (Yadav 159).
The aim of this assignment was to
find out if the participant students have the effect of pedagophobia and respectively find what could possibly caused them
to fear their ex-teachers and English lessons. 120 young English learners at a
language school attended the study but 90 of them were found relevant to the
subject through the questionnaire. Students age group were chosen generally
between 10-12 to keep the study intact and not cause the age difference affect
the result of the study. All 90 students had at least 4 years of English past
and could speak and understand English at PET (Preliminary English Test) level
provided by Cambridge International Test. The design and analysis of the survey
is given in detail with their effects under the study part, and finally, at the
end, the result of the study is given in the conclusion part.
Hypothesizing
Participants
were observed to be afraid of their teachers mainly due to their experiences
with their ex-teachers in the past. Based on this fact, students displayed
disinterested, shy and nervous feelings in the classroom no matter who their new
teachers were. So, this situation brought up something inside students called
"pedagophobia" meaning "Fear of Teachers" and always
haunted the them.
Research Question
The study was intended to find out whether
the chosen young English learners had the effects of pedagophobia and, in this respect, what may have caused students to
have the effects of pedagophobia in
classrooms. To examine this study, two following research questions were asked:
1. Do young
English learners have the effects of pedagophobia?
2. Why do
students fear their English teachers in classrooms?
The Study
In this study six interview
questions (Appendix 2) and ten questionnaire questions(Appendix 1) were used.
Furthermore, the study was supported by a worldwide survey and an in school
survey(Appendix 3) observing the causes of fear in children. Both surveys were prepared
by "The Oracle Education Foundation" and resulted in April 2012. With
the help of these surveys, questionnaire and the interview the intention was to
find out if the students had fear of teachers or in psychology, pedagophobia, and eventually what were
the reasons behind it. For this study, 90 students out of 120 who were closely
related to the problem were chosen to shed light on the subject confirming that
they felt timid in English classes. The rest of the 30 students were found
irrelevant to our subject and were eliminated. Along with the students, 3
English teachers participated to interview students privately. The students
were first given the questionnaire and then interviewed. The interview of 90
students took one week starting in October 2013. All the students were first
given a questionnaire for 15 minutes to be able to find out the ones relevant
to the subject and then chosen students were interviewed one by one in a
private room without any interruption. Students were interviewed by their own
classroom teachers privately so that they would feel comfortable to answer all
the questions. Students' gender were also taken into consideration and 54
female and 36 male students were shared into three groups, each group having 18
female and 12 male students. As mentioned above, specific kind of students were
chosen into the survey for the following reasons:
According to the
questionnaire results:
·
They were closely
related to our observed problem so their opinion would be utmost important in
resolving the issue.
·
We could focus on our
subject and not have any distractions by irrelevant answers.
·
They were young
students aging from ten to twelve so that their answers would not be too
different from one another, so the students age were kept as close as possible.
·
They were the students
who had problem with especially English classes and English teachers
themselves.
Questionnaire
Assessment
Scale:
Strongly Agree Agree Undecided Disagree
Strongly Disagree
1 2 3 4 5
The questionnaire works as above
assessment scale system. In the questionnaire I 5-point Likert type scale
method was used (see Appendices 1). The method is ranging from the lowest which
is “Strongly Disagree” to highest “Strongly Agree”. 120 students were allowed
to answer the questionnaire freely and comfortably. The aim of the
questionnaire was to approach the situation more objectively as all the
statements in the questionnaire are the same and thus creating a "quantitative
research method" which tried to get the answer of the whole group easily,
quickly and objectively.
The Result of the Study
In
terms of violence Gartrell explains in his work A Guidance Approach for the Encouraging Classroom "Physical
violence results in debasement of the child's self-concept and impairment of
healthy brain development"(464). While most of the teachers may think a
bit of violence could moderate and make the students obey their teacher, it is
actually getting worse as the time goes, because the students lose their
healthy condition to teacher's violence never to recover it. By violence, not
only physical violence is meant but also shouting is a type of violence in the
classroom. In the survey, mostly boys showed courage to rate their ex-teachers
sharply as violent, but the girls were milder in their decision, nevertheless,
the results generally showed us there were violence in the classroom as of 56%
of 9-12 years old students were more afraid of their teachers due to violence
in the classroom. (see fig. 1.) Most of
the participated students have experienced verbal violence, such as being
bullied in front of the class by their ex-English teachers.
A more general question was directed to students to find out who they
were afraid the most, and the result showed again that students were afraid of
their teachers most among the others. Besides,
when it comes to expressing their fear and overcoming it, the teachers were not
favored again. Although 67% percent of
the participants students were afraid of their mother and father, 68% of
students answered that they were scared of their teachers most. (see table 1)
Table 1. A table showing students scared of their
teachers most among others around. (The Oracle Education Foundation 2012)
Problem of being
shy in the classroom was another subject that lead students to feel timid in
the classroom. The reason was mostly because teacher would bully students
before the classroom in case they make a mistake. Of course not letting the
students make any mistakes, results in shyness with the students, and they are
not only "at risk of losing face in public"(Hjörne, Aalsvoort and
Abreu 151) but also becoming ineffective in the classrooms. Contrarily, one of
the philosophy teacher claims that "I wanted to raise students who would
always try to grow from their mistakes and who know that they're not dumb if they
make mistakes..."(Kosnik et al. 70) because, she adds: "I was scared
to do and say something that might be stupid."( Kosnik et al. 70) This
idea was kind of obsession to her as she "was not allowing herself to be
less than perfect"( Kosnik et al. 70). However, her mistakes helped her
finally decide in her work that one should make mistakes to find the right.
"My main stance in my teaching philosophy had been the idea of letting
students make mistakes and to learn from them" (Kosnik et al. 70). This
approach does not only let students feel comfortable and self-confident in the
classroom to speak without feeling any stress or pressure but also let them
perfect their knowledge on the subject, because when students are free to make
mistakes they would not have anything to fear consequently.
Table
2. The result of the question
"Do you feel shy while speaking English in front of the class?"
As mentioned
before, most of the students comprehended the idea of discipline as a kind of
violence method in the classes and when asked if the discipline is important in
the classroom for students, almost all students "strongly disagreed"
with the idea and they believe that discipline is just a way of punishing
naughty students and nothing more.. So, the subject of discipline which is
quite important in the classes is known wrong by the students, thus scares the
kids no matter when and where mentioned. Most of them answered about the
subject that "Our teacher used to scare us with discipline" If any of
us made a mistake, teacher would punish us with the discipline" (see table
3)
Table 3. Students responding to issue of discipline in
the English classes.
Discussion
The findings of the study revealed that both teachers'
acts towards their students and students misunderstandings about some terms
caused them to fear their teachers. While being asked the question about the
discipline, 78% of female students and 68% of male students answered "Strongly
Agree" (see table 3) believing that the discipline means just punishment
and should not be applied in schools. However, the idea of discipline is not "instilling fear of
punishment" (Progressive
Education Association 272) inside students' mind and keep them under control
that way, but it is actually to teach them the order that should be followed in
an educational institute to create as effective learning process as possible. The
reason of pedagophobia, thus, may have
possibly come from the misunderstood term, "Discipline", as in this
case, what students had in mind did not match their teachers' definition of the
term and let them believe that not only the discipline is bad but also the sole
reason of the discipline is the teacher's intentional decision, that is,
students and teachers somehow was not able to manage to share the same meaning
of the term "Discipline" which caused them to be in disagreement with
each other.
However, because
students' ex-teachers were verbally violent (see Fig. 1) and intolerant to
their students' mistakes in classroom, participants students were unable to
find their teachers innocent enough for the claims about the discipline, as
teachers, according to students, scolded and bullied students (Appendix 3)
which led students into the belief that teachers were doing it deliberately. Thus,
these particular acts by teachers in the
classroom caused students to find a way to escape from their teachers' bullying
and scolding, so they preferred to stay
embarrassed and shy instead of answering the questions asked by their teachers,
which, as a result, formed pedagophobia
in kids.
Conclusion
Throughout the study the main idea
was to find the "Fear of Teachers" in 9-12 years old English-learning
students. According to results, students were being verbally violated and
bullied in front of the classroom, which makes up the main problem and the
reason students complained about. Besides, due to some misunderstanding of the
term "Discipline" their fear has grown bigger as they always thought
they were going to be punished whenever teachers mentioned the word "Discipline".
The students, also, believed that their teacher was mainly responsible for all
their failure and success (Appendix 1) and they were actually their teachers'
reflection in the classroom. So, in one hand actually students take their
teachers as a great example, so they would also follow their teachers willingly
if the students were guided correctly, on the other hand, they do not feel
ready to approach their teachers and confining themselves off them. All in all, young English learners are very
sensitive on how their teachers behave in the class. Thus, the results of the
study showed us that that teachers' attitude in the classroom may affect and
change all students' life very effectively which may or may not be able to be
recovered again. As role models for children, teachers are sole leaders for a large
number of students and as long as they are good leader, the students will be
able to adjust and become as their teachers taught them to be.
