Double Standards: Teachers vs. Students

There are many double standards that I could talk about, but in this post, I'm going to talk about the double standards between teachers and students, as it is the issue that has come up the most. Teachers get away with so much more than students do. I'll start with something that happened recently. A teacher was talking about how us packing up before she dismisses us is a pet peeve of hers, and that she wasn't going to change. By saying this, she was implying that we should change because she wasn't going to. But why should we have to change? I know it's not a big thing, but we should all give a little and take a little.

Second example. Students often get penalized for turning things in late, but if teachers don't grade things or hand papers back within a reasonable amount of time, nothing happens, and sometimes they even become angry with us when we ask where our work is. In one class, a teacher hasn't handed back a paper or test that we did and took in January, and in another class, a teacher hasn't handed back a paper that we did in November or December.

Third example. At my school, there is a strict policy on being late. If you are one of more minutes late (for no apparent reason), you are subject to an unexcused tardy (or UT). If you are five or more minutes late, you are subject to an unexcused absence (or UA). I am not complaining about the rules, as they are understandable. However, many teachers are frequently late to classes, seemingly without reason or reprecussions. One teacher was even twenty-five minutes late to her forty-five minute long class. If a student is five minutes late, we get a UA, but if a teacher is twenty-five minutes late, it seems like nothing happens.

Fourth example. We have a chapel. It's not faith-based. We have speakers (usually teachers and students who are seniors) who talk about anything significant that they feel like talking about. We're not allowed to speak during chapel. One day, it was a teacher's chapel talk and he talked about how he is an Atheist and how people should actually think about what they believe and not just believe something because their parents do or out of fear. Another teacher stood up at the near end of the chapel talk, shouted "God Bless You!", then stormed out. From what I know, she didn't have to apologize or anything. I also know that if one of us, as students, had pulled a stunt like that, at the very least, we would have had to apologize to the chapel speaker, and probably to the school.

Last example. At my school, we have an Honor Code. Breaking the honor code is worse than breaking a regular rule. Honor code violations include lying, stealing, cheating, breaking into boys/girls dorms, etc. Recently, there have been a few Honor Committee (HC) meetings involving girls who broke into their boyfriends' dorm rooms. The punishments given were off-campus suspensions and academic probations. However, there are also unmarried teachers (among others) who many students have seen going over to each other's houses late at night and not leaving until the next morning. I understand that it is different, as they are adults, and we are teenagers. But is it not the same "crime"? I'm not trying to pick on anyone, but I just don't think it's fair.

If you're going to set an example, you should set a good one. You can't set a bad example and then wonder why we do the things that we do.