By Lic. Tony López
English and French Professor UCNE University

Sometimes the teacher misinterprets the looks on his students’ faces when he says a dissertation in the classroom. As a result, he perceives they are not really paying attention to what he communicates, since they are maybe nodding, squinting, and/or frowning. Well, that’s what he observes on them. Then he realizes they are just being critical of his ideas. In this sense, the teacher must be careful in order not to get the wrong impression about his students’ mood. He must use an accurate and descriptive perception of self and of them to have a good communication. Before going much deeper to this topic, it is vital to know the notion Perception.

WHAT IS PERCEPTION?
Perception is information that inserts to our brain through the five senses or the process of gathering sensory information and assigning meaning to it. Through our senses (eyes, ears, nose, skin, and taste buds), we gather information in our brain. Our brain uses the three stages: selection of the information, organization, and then interpretation of it. For instance, in the classroom the teacher uses his senses of vision to collect information from his students. He looks at them. He organizes that information, and then he interprets it. If he sees something remarkable, his intellect keeps that information he has perceived; and so with the other senses. Sometimes that unusual thing we observe could be stereotyped since the very beginning of our observation, and that’s not fair. We must go farther to express our own impression of them.

WHAT IS STEREOTYPING?
Another factor that influences our social perceptions of other people is stereotyping. Some teachers stereotype their students negatively or positively. They do it according to the point of view they have about those students, also according to cultural factors, and perceptual cues like, skin color, style of dress, body piercing, tattoo, a religious medal, gray or yellow hair, modern hair cuts, and so on. Those cues lead teachers to automatically project their generalized opinions onto a specific student.

Stereotyping contributes to perceptual inaccuracies by ignoring individual differences. Stereotyping causes us to assume certain characteristics just because a person happens to be a member of the stereotyped group. We may be able to think of instances when we have been the victim of a stereotyped based on our gender, age, ethnic heritage, social class, physical characteristics, or other qualities. If so, we know how damaging and unfair stereotyping can be.

Stereotyping and prejudice go hand in hand. Prejudice is an unjustified attitude toward a person or a group. For instance, when some teachers discover that Pierre, a Negro student has just come to the class for the first time, they stereotype him if they view him in terms of their perception of Pierre’s believes about cultural traits rather than in terms of his individual behavior. Moreover, to the extent that teachers permit their stereotype to govern their responses to Pierre, they will be guilty of prejudice. In this case, Pierre may never get the chance to be known among his classmates for who he really is.

Two forms of prejudice that cause major problems in relationships in our society and specifically in this case between teachers and students are racism and sexism.

Stereotyping is not good, especially in the teaching learning process. It is to feel prejudices, and that is a negative factor in that important task that is education. Teachers that are prejudiced are likely to continue to maintain their prejudices even in the face of evidence that disproves them. Teachers should not stereotype because that factor contributes to split the relations between, both, teachers and students. That action can break down their relations. Then what must we do in order to get good results in our perception?

TO IMPROVE SOCIAL PERCEPTION
To become a competent communicator, improving social perception is an important first step because inaccuracies in perception are common and influence how we communicate. One of the most important parts to improve social perception is to check perceptions verbally.

Check perceptions verbally. Before we act on any conclusion we draw from our students’ behaviors, we should make a perception check. A perception check is a verbal statement that reflects our own understanding of the meaning of another person’s non-verbal cues. To make a good perception check in our students, we must follow three steps, 1) to watch the behavior of the other person, 2) to ask ourselves, “What does that behavior mean to me?”, and 3) to put our interpretation of the behavior into words to verify whether our perception is accurate.

To make an accurate perception check, we must use phrases or statements that really lead us to have good communications with our students. For example, when a student comes to class late, we can not say at once, -“Pedrito, you always come to class late”. That speech is not a good way to express to Pedrito. That action could break down the conversation immediately; moreover, the teacher won’t get any result to solve that problem. However, if the teacher says, -“Pedrito, you came late, what’s the matter with you today. Is there something I can do?” In this last statement, we can get approval on Pedrito and the talk could get a good rhythm since the manner is much subtler. In this case, he will be pleased with the teacher. Sometimes what it works is the way.

In briefly, to get a truthful and accurate perception on our students, we cannot speed up our judgment. We must be more familiar to get to know them well for stating our outlook. We must make a good perception check following the last three steps chronologically. And that takes time. Take your time not to make mistakes and you’ll see you’ll relate much better with your students!!!