Students who want to test your knowledge
What are you supposed to do if students keep challenging you because you're a young teacher and much younger than those students being taught? How do you deal with that and fix the problem?? I need to gain the respect of my students, but I don't know how to accomplish that when all they do is judge me for my age...
I have the same problem. I have learned to be assertive in class from the beginning. I find myself taking extra time to prepare for class and use more of my experience in the profession. I have been learning that when the students realize that I have much more experience in the field than they had initially thought they begin to respect me even more. I know this seems superficial, but I also find myself looking for ways to dress and look older, which is very hard with today's trends.
I don't have the same problem that has been described here, but I've had my share of students who think that they know it all and love to catch the instructor making a mistake. One of the things I do to prevent that type of student from gloating over catching me making a mistake (misspelling something on the white board is something they love to catch)is on the first day I tell my students that they need to watch me and let me know if I make an error. I tell them that I am only human and just as prone to brain-farts as anyone else. Then when they do point out an error, I thank them for it and make the correction. It takes all the fun out of it for those few smart-aleck students.
I don't have this problem generally. However, if I really don't know an answer to a question, I will tell them that I don't know, but I can find out. I try to keep up to date with information in my field, but you can't always have everything covered. I try to be honest with my students in that respect.
