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[quote=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.[/quote]

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