Saying “hello” is , at least, a beginning

I’ve been listening to a teacher advice and discussion YouTube channel over the past few weeks, and one recent episode focused on something surprisingly simple: saying hello.

She said that almost every teacher she speaks with or interviews cannot get the students to say hello, or even acknowledge the teacher’s presence when they speak.

Many teachers say students no longer seem to recognize the teacher’s voice as a human one—more like an interruption than a presence.

To them, it often sounds more like this:

SAY HELLO

Since the early ’80s, I’ve begun almost every class the same way: “Hi, everybody.”

Once in a while I’ll get really creative and replace the second word with “Everyone.” I do it religiously. In fact, I don’t think I could start class without saying it.

At first, I actually had to train my students to say hi or hello back at me. If they sit in silence without any response, I make a big deal, with sob stories like,” Come on, folks. There’s a human person up in front of the room saying hi to you. The common etiquette would be to say hi or hello or what’s up or something back.”

Eventually, they succumb. Now, as a reminder, I taught 9th and 12th grade primarily. Seniors are quite often, as my friend Marcelo used to say,” Too cool for school.” So it took more convincing and also practice with them.

Once I trained them to say hi to me, I also insisted that they say hi to other adults who walked into my room, like the Principal. “Good morning, Dr. Harley!” they would say, some of them begrudgingly. But they did it, smirking and giggling as the glanced over at their colleagues who had similarly called out the greeting.

CURRENTLY

The prominent attitude that teachers are insignificant in the room—an inconvenience to the otherwise pressing engagements students are absorbed in—is bad. It is a real problem.

Teachers must be the center of attention in a classroom—and they must command it.

I am all for providing students the floor (and attention) or the classroom stage when they answer questions, read papers, or present projects.

But in the end, all voices must be ceased when the teacher has an announcement or an instruction. If not for effective classroom management, then for safety.

And the first way to insure that students recognize the teacher as a human authority, albeit, a kind and beneficent one, is to make sure they return the enthusiastic “HELLO!”—not optional, but practiced.