In the book The Skillful Teacher, Stephen D. Brookfield (2015) points out that he holds an assumption that “college students of any age should be treated as adults”(p.23). I have the same belief, but I would change the wording of the above quote a little to express the reality that I personally have experienced. College students of any age want to be treated as adults but don’t always act as such.
I agree that since we are teaching adults (18-99 years old) we should treat our students as adults. It is just respectful to do so. Especially since many of the students I teach are actually 10-20 years older than I am. Alas, believe me, treating adults as adults is not an easy task.
Since I work in a clinical nursing setting and regularly evaluate students’ skills, I realize I hold power over their success in the clinical. That power, can occasionally make me forget that I must remain respectful and refrain from treating my students as children. The power struggle within me is one issue (I’m not perfect, boo hoo) but when students actually act like children another issue arises. Adults are not always responsible, reliable, or accountable for their actions. So often do I have students skipping labs and skills demonstrations and extra prep days and then blaming the teacher for not giving them the time to prepare. I have students lie to my face because they don’t want to get in trouble (forgetting that it’s ok to make mistakes as long as you learn from them). I have students missing very important clinical shifts without any notice to me about their absence (after I gave them specific instructions, more than once, to not do that). The list goes on and on. I understand all circumstances are different and issues exist with language barriers, learning difficulties, financial or psychological problems, but still sometimes adults just act like children.
When teaching adults who act like children, it is inevitable that eventually we will start treating them as such. Even worse, after ‘getting burned’ with a bad experience generally educators will try to avoid making the same mistake twice and make their classroom rules of conduct and expectations by initiating attendance lists and strict (and often outrageous) classroom rules. Unfortunately that can become a pattern which is hard to stop for the educators and therefore have a negative effect on students who are actually being responsible .
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