Enablers:
1. Providing Support: Teaching professionals can play a crucial role in supporting and empowering their students. By recognizing students' strengths and weaknesses, providing individualized instruction, and fostering a positive learning environment, teachers can help students reach their full potential and overcome challenges.
2. Encouraging Independence: Effective teachers encourage students to develop independence and self-motivation. They foster a sense of responsibility, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills, enabling students to become lifelong learners who are capable of making informed decisions and taking ownership of their education.
3. Advocacy and Guidance: Teaching professionals can act as advocates for their students, especially those facing personal, social, or economic barriers. By providing guidance, mentorship, and referral to appropriate resources, teachers can help students navigate challenges and access opportunities for success.
4. Building Trust and Rapport: Establishing a strong relationship built on trust and rapport is crucial for effective teaching and learning. When students feel valued, supported, and safe in their learning environment, they are more likely to engage, participate, and seek help when needed.
Exploiters:
1. Unfair Expectations: Teachers who set unrealistic expectations or fail to differentiate instruction according to students' abilities and learning styles may inadvertently exploit students. Demanding excessive workload or expecting students to perform beyond their capabilities can lead to frustration, discouragement, and a sense of inadequacy.
2. Favoritism and Bias: Teachers who show favoritism towards certain students or exhibit bias based on personal preferences, social status, or other factors create an unfair and discriminatory learning environment. This behavior undermines the principle of equity and can lead to feelings of resentment and exclusion among students.
3. Emotional Manipulation: Exploitative teaching professionals may use emotional manipulation to control and influence students. This can involve guilt-tripping, emotional blackmail, or creating a sense of obligation to gain compliance or loyalty from students.
4. Breach of Trust: Teachers who engage in inappropriate behavior or abuse their positions of power exploit the trust placed in them by students and their families. Sexual misconduct, physical or emotional abuse, or any form of exploitation violates ethical standards and can have severe and long-lasting negative impacts on students' well-being and development.
5. Lack of Professionalism: Teaching professionals who fail to uphold professional standards, such as neglecting responsibilities, showing up unprepared, or engaging in unprofessional conduct, undermine the integrity of their profession and exploit the trust placed in them by students, parents, and the wider community.
It's important to note that not all teaching professionals engage in enabling or exploitative behavior, and most strive to create a supportive and nurturing environment for students. However, recognizing and addressing instances of enabling or exploitation is crucial to ensure the well-being and success of students and maintain the integrity of the teaching profession.