h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Would you agree that, as students get older, relationships with teachers get more equal, and usually more colloquial?

yes.

yep.

How about some personal experiences? I was still quite surprised when I met one of my chemistry lecturers at a pub with two final year students. Why does media and film not choose to reflect this increasing familiarity?

They only reflect it when the teacher is a lech - don't you think?

One of my history tutors *married* on of his undergrads - pervy if you ask me

One does havet ask - what sort of a person is this that they have to resort to socialising with pupils? Doesn't strike one as the life and soul of a perty...

I'm a university lecturer and I used to meet up with clive the flying ostrich and eris (both students at the time) for a drink.In fact they used to come and invade my office bearing and pinch my computer.

I think it is not the age of the students that counts, but the knowledge they have acquired during the years. This places them on a more equal footing as colleges in stead of pupils.

My mate at uni was doing some ad hoc jobs in one of the radio chem labs and invited a few of his friends from the lab(mainly Phd students) over for a drink, they turned up along with the head of course and his wife who had given them all a lift. My mate was actually quite flattered that this very aloof academic (or rather that was the face he presented to the UGs) wanted to spend time talking to him and hearing his opinions on things. They ended up as good friends.

On the surface his age (he was 40 when we graduated) might have been the reason behind this...but I doubt it...we didn't really fit in with the atmosphere at the uni at all (most lecturers don't like being heckled) it was only once we reached 3rd yr and all the lecturers realised that we only heckled because we were interested that they started to accept us as we were (instead of bemoaning the fact that we hated field trips)

I think as you get older teachers certainly become more accessible, even in the sixth form teachers who were very aloof with us when we were younger became a lot more friendly and treated us more as adults. Lessons became more chatty and less formal, but this might also be because if you're doing A levels you've chosen to be there and are less likely to timewaste, and of course class sizes are a lot smaller (my latin A Level class had 4 people in it). The same thing applies to university. Seminar groups are usually quite small so you get a lot more interaction with your lecturer which means you get to know them better and they get to know you. Particularly good if you get a lecturer in whose research interests you are interested in. The head of my course (which has about 45 students) also takes us out at Christmas and stands us all a round of drinks which is pretty decent of hom.

My one English professor married 2 of his past students, in succession.

But I am finding that most of my uni professors look at me not so much as an idiotic troglidyte (sp?) to be lectured at (like many of my high school teachers did), but something of an equal and definitely a friend of some kind. This last time I was really ill, I kept an email conversation going with my band director, and he's always involving me in conversation in the halls of the music department. My flute prof and I never shut up (I'm often in her office for another hour after my lesson), my freshman fall semester English prof considers me her daughter in a way, and my advisor and I often get rather off-topic when I go in to meet with him. By that I mean a short 15 minute meeting for him to tell me what to take (or not to take) and for me to get my pin number for registration often turns into an hour's discussion about English (writing/theory, etc, not as in England) philosophy.

Some of my high school teachers were like that and still are - my 12th grade English teacher and I would often stay after class talking (friendly stuff, not necessaily cirriculum stuff) and I still email her now and then. Same goes for my French teacher, who I had for 3 of my 7 (8?) years of French.

As a teacher I generally find that I like talking to old pupils.They magically bloom into charming,erudite and intelligent human beings instead of grunting,sagging teacher hating teenagers.Or maybe time heals wounds and memories fade.

Incog.