Respect to be Respected

The moral we heard that many times, so it lost its literal meaning.

I usually write about events, not people. However, during the couple last week, I noticed a lot of disrespectful behavior towards my friends and myself, so I decided to speak up about it.

Respecting others is common sense. We take it for granted until someone treats us disrespectfully. Like when you are answering a question in class and someone starts actively and loudly talking. There are many other examples, like interrupting in the middle of the conversation - it is rude; not letting people normally walk in the hallways or in the bus is rude; being late to class and loudly talking to your friend on the way to your seat is rude; skipping the line is rude.

It is disrespectful towards other people, who are also humans, like you.

There are about 40 people in my HR class. It is hard to keep all of them quiet during the two-hour lecture. This is not a professor’s fault that some of the students are not interested in the course from the very beginning of the semester.

One day after class I asked my HR professor, Bishakha Mazumdar, how does she deal with students who do not respect her and the rest of the class? As they do not listen and interrupt? Her answer was:

“Most days, as a first step, I make the students aware of their behavior and its impact: I make eye contact and non-verbal gesture to give them opportunities to change their behavior. If that does not help, I usually either use humor (do you have something interesting to share with us all) or go more direct (please let us be respectful and pay attention to what our friend is saying here)”.

Every professor and every student were dealing with that and I hope you made a conclusion. Treat others like you would like to be treated.