For teachers, the role they play should be more inclined to helping students in learning with efficiency. This is why we need teachers to guide us in academia in spite of the fact that they might not be liked by most of the students. Learning prevails over popularity at school for teachers. Thus, in my opinion, it is really arduous for teachers to make their students like them and meanwhile also be able to assist them in effective learning at school.
To begin with, effective learning is always involved with the hard time. If a teacher helps his or her students to learn effectively, it means the aim of the teaching can be measured in a certain period of time. In other words, students need to be concentrated and serious, stopping making fun of each other like most young students do. This means teachers have an object to complete and usually within a set period of time during which students will be forced to learn and perceive the class material. Under such learning environment, it is not probable to make students like the teachers. Take math as an example. Most students dislike this subject; if teachers want all their students learn multiplication table effectively, they need to pressure students into paying attention to the class, admonishing them to learn it by heart in the class time. With stress, a majority of students will not agree much with what the teacher does in the class. Students will certainly grumble and dislike what the teachers do. Moreover, if they have hard time finishing this class task on time, they might be punished. The complaints they have can in turn go to the teachers in the end. Thus, it is not easy for a teacher to be able to effectively assist students and to be popular at the same time, of which the two behaviors are contradictory in many aspects.
Secondly, students always like teachers who can make them feel at ease. It is almost impossible for teachers to help students effectively for their learning in a happy way. To be more concise, learning is not all fun and relaxing because we are absorbing new things, which might engage us in memorizing and in focusing. Take high school and elementary school students as examples. Most students go to school for fun, for meeting up their friends and for making friends they like. Of course, they also go to school for learning new things; however, if the teacher wants to effectively help the students learn new things in the class, the fun and relaxing time will be shrunk. For instance, in the mid-terms or finals, teachers are more serious and affirmative. Students do not like such learning environment as well as the teachers at that specific period of time. Therefore, how can a teacher be popular among students if he or she carries out the effective learning target in the class? The two elements are difficult to be achieved at the same time.
Admittedly, some people may claim that it is not difficult for teachers to be liked by students and still be able to help them effectively in learning. A great teacher can also produce a way in which students can be helped effectively and the teacher can also be liked. It is the teaching approach the teacher adopts that affects the whole learning. Human beings have been made attempts to come up with a solution that they can, as the proverb puts it "Kill two birds with one stone." A noble idea it is, the ambition of reaching a perfect outcome is the power of civic advancement for sure. However, it does not fit into the category of education. People need to make sacrifices in leaning. When the mission of such learning falls on teachers, they will of course try to make it easily absorbed to students. Yet when the latter mission cannot be reached, the teacher has to target on helping students learn effectively no matter students them or not. Thus, I agree with the prompt—It is difficult for teachers to be both popular and effective to help students in learning.