In a recent essay for the “On Campus” section of the New York Times Opinion pages (posted online October 17th), a college professor gave good advice that she says she wishes she had taken when she was an undergraduate. The advice was practical and gave specific examples of what to do (go to class, get to know your professors, try to get good grades) and what not do to (party, study too little, sit in the back of the class and say nothing).

I was taken aback, however, by what the author, Susan Shapiro, said near the beginning of the piece: “I was the type of mediocre student I now disdain.”

Okay, so I know what Shaprio was saying; at least, I hope I do. She came to understand that she wasted opportunities when she was an undergraduate and now recognizes that type of behavior in some of her own students.

But, but, but. . .that word “disdain.” Over the course of every semester, my students engender in me any number of reactions and emotions: joy, confusion, annoyance, hopefulness, pride, even frustration. Disdain? Never. And I would like to hope that if I ever find myself feeling disdain for even one of my students, I would recognize that it was time for me to take myself out of the classroom.

Here is what I kept thinking about as I read through the essay: While Shapiro was clear in her mind that the students she disdains are the ones who choose to waste opportunities by spending all their class time on their phones, or by getting drunk instead of studying, or by worrying more about romantic entanglements than they do about assignments, is this going to be as clear to any current students reading what she wrote? Especially undergraduates in Sharpiro’s courses? What about the student who sits in the back and is quiet not because she has never engaged with the class material but because she is too shy to speak up? Will she see herself as one of the disdained? Or the student who struggles to maintain a C average? Will she read this essay and think that it’s useless to ask her professor for help because she is a “mediocre” student? Yes, I know that Shapiro isn’t talking about students who do their absolute best and can’t get that 3.5 GPA, but will the student who is struggling understand the distinction?

Even more troubling is that a teacher would use the word “disdain” to describe any of her students in any context. Am I disheartened when I see a student waste the opportunities that college offers her? You bet. Do I try my best to find ways to draw my students into class discussions and come up with strategies to help them engage more deeply with the material I am teaching? Of course. Does it always work? No. But nowhere in this process do I ever feel disdain for my students.

Let’s not kid ourselves. Students can tell how we feel about them. None of us is a good enough actor that an emotion as strong and unpleasant as disdain would not affect the ways we relate to, and engage with, our students. This short-circuiting of the teaching dynamic would be bad enough in any instance, but with an at-risk student it would be disastrous. So many “mediocre” students already feel as if they aren’t doing well because of some personal – even moral – failure. If they then sense disdain on my part, there is no way they will reach out to me for help.

As teachers, we would be well served to remember the things we don’t do well, then use the emotions these memories produce to help us be more sympathetic and understanding when dealing with a student who doesn’t “get it.” I cannot, for the life of me, learn a foreign language, nor am I good at any type of mathematics more difficult than balancing a checkbook. When I am sitting across from a student who can’t see how the syntax in her freshman composition essay is wonky, or talking with a student who lacks an understanding of how certain literary devices are metaphors and not literal descriptions, I think back to my experience in Business Statistics and how I floundered around in mathematical equations the entire course. Or, worse, the French and German language courses I had to take as a graduate student; I understood, at best, about a quarter of what we read and discussed in language class each week. In the end, I was able to pass all three courses because I had understanding and sympathetic instructors; had I sensed any disdain from any of them, I would have been hesitant to approach them for help. This was as a grad student. Imagine how much more difficult it would be for an undergraduate.

Every student is good at something. The corollary to that statement is that there is something that each students isn’t so good at. One of our responsibilities as teachers is to make sure that the things that students aren’t good at don’t become impediments to them doing well overall in college. We can’t fulfill that responsibility if, in their interactions with us, any of our students sense the corrosive and destructive presence of disdain.