Engaged students aren’t afraid to ask for help from teachers when they need it. And most teachers are happy to help a nice, earnest kid who’s struggling. But there are right ways and wrong ways to ask for that kind of help. Here are five wrong ways.
Forget that you’re asking for a favor.
A teacher who spends time helping you outside of class hours is doing you a favor. Instead of preparing before school for their first class, they’re meeting with you. Instead of eating their lunch at lunchtime, they’re meeting with you. Instead of going home after school when the day is done, they’re meeting with you. That’s their time, not yours. And if you don’t ask them nicely to allocate some of that time to you, if you’re unwilling to meet on days and times that work best for them, and worst of all, if you don’t express your appreciation for their help, it’s hard for any reasonable person to feel good about extending themselves on your behalf.
Send your parents to do your talking for you.
Sending your parents on your behalf to ask a teacher for help sends the wrong message. It tells the teacher that your parents care more about this than you do. It tells the teacher that you aren’t taking responsibility for any of your struggles. And it doesn’t allow your teacher the opportunity to diagnose the root of your struggles or give any preliminary feedback directly to you.
When you’re sick, you don’t send your parents to the doctor on your behalf to diagnose what’s ailing you. Like the responsibility for your health, the responsibility for your education is not something that you should outsource to someone else.
Take no responsibility.
How would you feel if you’d worked hard in class all semester and a friend who hadn’t tried at all came to you before the final and said, “This class is so hard! I need your help to get my grade up. Can you tutor me?” Wouldn’t you feel a little taken advantage of? Wouldn’t you want that friend to at least acknowledge their role in the jam they’d gotten themselves into? That’s roughly how your teacher feels if you ask for help without recognizing what if any, responsibility you have for your current academic state.
If you haven’t paid attention, if you haven’t completed your assignments, or if you just haven’t tried as hard as you should have, and you combine those mistakes with a refusal to take any ownership of them, don’t be surprised if your teacher points out those facts when you ask for help.
Blame the subject or the course.
“I just don’t get any of this.”
“This stuff makes no sense!”
“This class is confusing.”
Statements like those subtly make the case that the teacher, the material, or both are somehow failing you. But there are almost certainly students in your class who are not having the same struggles, so you can’t completely assign blame somewhere else. It’s entirely reasonable to struggle with particular subjects—nobody is great at everything. And like all professions, some teachers are better than others. But directing criticism at chemistry or trig or French is not the best way to elicit help from someone who’s dedicated their professional life to teaching that subject.
Ask what to do to improve your grade.
Of course, you want to raise your grade. There’s no shame in that. But there’s a difference between asking, “What can I do to improve my grade?” and, “What can I do to better understand biology?” Understand that many students may not see a difference, but trust us on this one.
Asking how to improve your grade smacks of grade grubbing—not a likable trait in a student. It’s like a struggling restaurant owner contacting Yelp and asking how to improve their low reviews. The low reviews themselves are not the problem. What the restaurant is doing (or not doing) to earn such low marks is the problem. A grade is the measurement of your performance. Asking your teacher to help change the measurement alone just shows that you’re not focusing on the actions (or inactions) that led you to this place.
Summary
It’s easy to annoy your teachers. Forget that you’re are asking the teacher for a favor, asking your parents to advocate on your behalf, not taking responsibility, blaming the subject, or the course, or asking what you can do to improve your grade, instead of focusing on what you can do to better understand the material, are a sure way to irritate your teachers. Do your part to participate and appreciate what your teachers do for you, and your teachers will be more than delighted to support your efforts.
For more academic success tips, see our tutoring and study skills blog.