How do students build connections with teachers?

[Anonymous]

I don’t know how. If I participate in class, the teachers tells me I am annoying and sucking up energy and time. Teachers tell them I am violating their boundaries if I ask them questions after class or school. Whatever I do, I always seem to piss them off. They say I am stupid and worthless. These same teachers were easily able to build strong connections with other students and won awards like teacher of the year, so I don’t know what I am doing wrong. I don’t know how you are supposed to build good connections for things like letters of recommendation

[Anonymous]

What school do you go to OP?

[Anonymous]

In what school do teachers literally say "you are stupid and worthless"?

[Anonymous]

Oh honey…no teacher is telling you you are stupid and worthless. If by some minuscule chance they are, report that immediately. They are in the wrong profession.

[Anonymous]

There’s a clear line between students genuinely expressing curiosity about the subject and those who are sucking up or trying to impress everyone with how smart they are.

This is an issue with some students on the spectrum and it can come down to timing or tone.

Practicing can be helpful, but if you are really just speaking up to try to get close to the professor, it will show.

Try just talking about the academic topic that you are both excited about. If you don’t have one in common, that’s the wrong professor to cultivate a mentorship with.

[Anonymous]

And how do you avoid coming off as just sucking up to the teacher?

[Anonymous]

Students who build connections with teachers aren’t [i]trying[\i] to build connections. They happen organically over time. Conversations during class, hanging out at lunch with other friends too, coming for help, participation in a club the teacher sponsors.

[Anonymous]

Just be yourself. No, I don’t want students hanging out with me at lunch! Please don’t ask to do that.

If you are generally quiet, that’s fine. If you are outgoing, that’s fine too. Participate if you want and if it comes naturally. I don’t say yes or no to recommendations based on if I like the student or how much they participate.

Connections happen naturally and it’s something you can’t force, just like a friendship in real life. But I’ve written plenty of recommendations for solid students who I don’t feel a particularly strong connection, there were just good students in my class. I’ve still written strong recommendations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know how. If I participate in class, the teachers tells me I am annoying and sucking up energy and time. Teachers tell them I am violating their boundaries if I ask them questions after class or school. Whatever I do, I always seem to piss them off. They say I am stupid and worthless. These same teachers were easily able to build strong connections with other students and won awards like teacher of the year, so I don’t know what I am doing wrong. I don’t know how you are supposed to build good connections for things like letters of recommendation

If a teacher is really telling you that you are stupid and worthless you need to tell your parents and report it to your dean/principal. No teacher should be talking that way to a student.

[Anonymous]

OP I just want to validate how you feel. I am much older than you but really struggled with this in HS. The issue for me was that I was raised to have a certain attitude towards people in positions of authority (deferential, not overly friendly or personal) and in my HS, the teachers actually expected students to treat them more like friends and develop relationships the way you might with a peer, maybe with a little more respect. They were very casual and the kids they liked best spoke to them like friends or peers.

There was just no way I could do that as a high school student. I probably did come off like I was "sucking up" when I tried to develop rapport with teachers, because I had no idea how to talk to adults and didn't know how to do things like make jokes or be casual. I think my higher level of formality was off-putting to them and seemed fake.

I remember having negative experiences asking for teacher recommendations, even though I think the recs I got were fine. I wound up asking one teacher who was also the faculty advisor for an EC I was very involved in, and the other taught an AP class where I'd been one of only a handful of students to get a 5. The AP teacher wrote a fine if not glowing rec. The faculty advisor made me write my own recommendation, which I hated and actually felt hurtful to me at the time because I had worked so hard in her classes and that EC for four years and was one of only a handful of students who had pursued the EC to a high level, and I was sad she couldn't just sit down write something kind about me. I also had no idea how to write a good recommendation and felt weird saying nice things about myself but it wound up okay.

I got better at this in college. I had to work on my self esteem and learn to view myself as an adult who deserved to be in a conversation with someone at that level. It's hard. Kids who are raised with some level of entitled are better at it. For me, I had to learn to fake it a little. That's what's funny -- when I learned to fake being a "peer" of my teachers/professors, they found me more genuine than when I behaved the way that felt natural to me, which was to be deferential or even sort of obsequious. But my parents taught me the wrong things about authority and it got in the way. I had to unlearn it and that meant doing things that felt unnatural.

So my advice to you is to see if you can find any teachers who you like on a personal level, who you could maybe have some rapport with based on something outside the teacher-student relationship. Like something beyond your performance in their class. Is there a teacher who you might be able to bond with over shared musical tastes, or movies, or food? Someone who might share your sense of humor? What I have learned is that this the best way to build connections. The college professors I built the best rapport with weren't even the ones whose classes I did the best in, except for in one case. Rather, they came to like me as a person and then, as I was generally a good student and clearly worked hard, they then rewarded me with glowing recommendations. But really the reason they liked me is because I was personable with them, not because I nailed the exam or contributed insightful things in class discussion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Students who build connections with teachers aren’t [i]trying[\i] to build connections. They happen organically over time. Conversations during class, hanging out at lunch with other friends too, coming for help, participation in a club the teacher sponsors.

Lol, they absolutely are. Pretty much every upper class striver rising 9th grader knows how important it is to build relationships with teacher for college recommendation purposes.