Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, Volume 28, Number 1

When I was a child, my mother used to tell me that "teachers are people, too." Needless to say, I never believed her. There is nothing more frightening as a child than having your mother "run into" your teacher in the grocery store. What embarrassing details might they share about you from their separate universes? Yet, the relationship--the understanding--between students and teachers is one of the most important elements of learning. In higher education, students are expected to move from early dualistic expectations of teacher/experts to give them the answers, to becoming independent learners who see their instructors as peers and are able to judge evidence on their own. But it takes more than proximity for students to feel understood and respected by their teachers so that they can progress along the cognitive learning path. Some of the problems that keep students and teachers from the trust they need to develop involve personal biases, cultural ignorance/misunderstanding, and slow development of personal identity as separate knowers.