Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?
Students are more influenced my their teachers than by their friends.
A recent research done by a team in the
department of education in Seoul National University shows an astonishing result
regarding the influence of friends on students. According to the research, 95
percents of the students in the age of 10-20 answered that they consider their
friends advice most seriously while deciding on a salient problem. Conversely,
only 1 percent of these students answered they consider their teacher's advice
most importantly. Regarding the result of the research, I believe that students tend to get affected much more by
their peers than adults like teachers. There are some reasons for this.
First and foremost, students
are likely to follow thoughts and behaviors of their friends because they spend
most of their time together. Students meet their friends almost every time and
every day. They hang out, learn and study together. As a result, they
communicate a lot and are affected by each other. In contrast, students meet
teachers only in the classroom and rarely talk with them. Consequently, it is
inevitable that students usually follow their friends advice than that of their
teachers. Rather, students think that teachers cannot understand their whole
situation, while their friends know it well and thoroughly.
On top of that, we cannot
deny the existence of peer pressure among students. In other words, if most
students do a certain thing, then the rest of the students cannot help but
doing the same thing. In my case, when I was in high school, my teacher
prohibited us from using cell phone during a class. However, since every
students did not follow her rule and used cell phone at school, I, who was
really reluctant to use it and wanted to follow what teacher said, had to use
it while taking a class. If I had not used it, I would have been kicked off
from my friends group. In this way, students adapt their actions suitable for
their peers to keep being friends with them, even if it is against what their
teacher say to them.
Last but not least, some
students try to resist everything adults suggests. Students in the adolescence
are sensitive and restrain to conventional customs. In their view, teachers
would seem to be boring and too conservative. Thus, they ignore teachers'
advice and just believe in themselves and value their friends. For example, my
younger brother is middle school student and he never listen to what his
teacher say to him and always talks secretly with his friends. Since he did not
do his homework much, his teacher said to do it, but he remained the same. In contrast,
when his girlfriend persuaded him, he followed it easily. For these immature
students, teachers have almost no effect at all and only their friends can
change them.
In conclusion, students are
readily effected by their friends but are hardly moved by teachers. It is
because they do spend scores of time with friends and communicate with them
much. In addition, peer pressure and immaturity of students also attribute to
this fact. In this regard, it is of great importance for students to have good
companions, since they can change their whole lives.