Impact of physical appearance of teachers on students learning environment

Impact of physical appearance of teachers on students learning environment

ABSTRACT

A teacher guides the future of the society. A person in his /her whole life learns a lot from teachers, so it is very important for teachers to set good example for the society. Everybody learns from teacher by imitating them, so all teachers have a big responsibility to teach good things to their student. This paper tried to find out that how the physical appearance of a teacher impacts on students learning environment. We have given questionnaires to about 116 students of Jodhpur of different age, gender and educational streams and asked them to fill that questionnaire. The questions asked were related to physical appearance of teachers that impact their learning environment.

Introduction:

A physical appearance is the description of the physical properties of an object. Most of the time, we judge a person by his /her physical appearance, in fact when we imagine about a beautiful woman, what all physical properties comes in our mind; slim, beautiful skin, beautiful eyes and so on. Similarly when we imagine about a bad person or in fact thief, we think of big body, cruel faces etc.

Physical appearance is the one factor of any person that influences the environment very easily. Physical appearance affects the ways; we look at other people and the way we look at ourselves.

Physical appearance is the physical look of any person. It is one of the most important factors of a personality. This is what people look at you and what they think about you. Physical appearance has the major impact on society. Physical appearance is outward or visible aspect of a person or thing

Teacher’s physical appearance makes good impact on students, I remember when I was a student, I use to attend my mathematics class because the teacher was very good looking, and he use to come well dressed in the classroom. Most of the students scored well in his subject as the attendance in his class was always above 90%. I also remember my history teacher who uses to come very shabby in the classroom, no student wanted to attend his class and most of the students scored bad in his subject. So I experienced the importance of teachers’ physical appearance to make the classroom environment more effective.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Myers (2005) summarized this literature as, “Good looks are a great asset” (p. 432).

Mazzella & Feingold, 1994 and Stewart, 1980 said that defendants perceived as attractive were more likely to receive a more lenient punishment if found guilty of a crime.

According to Bloch & Richins, 1992; Hosoda, Stone-Romero, & Coats, 2003; Langlois et al., 2000

“Being perceived as physically attractive is associated with a wide range of positive outcomes”

As per Benson, Karabenick, & Lerner, 1976, “Individuals perceived as attractive are more likely to receive help from strangers than are persons perceived as unattractive.

According to Eagly, Ashmore, Makhijani, & Longo, 1991, persons perceived as attractive were viewed as more socially competent.

Chaiken, 1979 said that physically attractive persons were more persuasive communicators.

Frieze, Olson, & Russell, 1991; Hamermesh & Biddle, 1994 have shown that individuals perceived as attractive receive higher incomes than co-workers perceived as unattractive .

Abbey, Cozzarelli, McLaughlin, & Harnish, 1987; Buckley, 1983; Workman & Orr, 1996, indicate that other factors, such as the gender of the perceiver and the clothing of the target, also influence the perception of physical attractiveness .

Budesheim & DePaola, 1994; Sigelman, Thomas, Sigelman, & Ribich,1986 said that attractive persons were preferred by voters in political elections

Ritts, Patterson, & Tubbs, 1992, Attractive persons were viewed as having greater academic potential by teachers.

A good physical appearance of a teacher has three advantages:

- Gains respect from students
- Increase attendance of students in the class
- Helps in controlling the class