Band 6+: Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Students are more influenced by their teachers than by their friends. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

In my opinion, students are more influenced by their friends rather than their teachers. Therefore, I disagree with the statement ‘Students are more influenced by their teachers than by their friends’.

I do not disagree with the fact that students get influenced by their teachers, however, I believe that this ‘influence’ is mostly within the field of academics. In most cases, the only time that students communicate with the teacher is in the school building, in the classroom. Most of the discussions are about topics related to studies. However, with friends, students often tend to discuss a variety of topics, such as studies, friends, relationships and families. Therefore, students are generally influenced more broadly by their friends, while the only influence made by the teachers are mostly academical.

The amount of time spent with the teacher or friend, also effect on how much influence has been made to a person. As mentioned previously, the time that students communicate with the teachers is restricted to school hours. However, students spend or communicate with their friends not only in school but even outside the school campus and school hours. Especially with the emerging technology, and the development of mobile phones and the internet, students are now able to communicate with their friends at any time where ever they are. Since the amount of time spent communicating with their friends are much larger than the time spent with the teachers, there are more chance of the students being influenced by their friends rather than their teachers.

Also, it is normal that the students feel psychologically more attached to the people in their age group, especially with their friends. The teachers are usually from different generations from the students and this may cause the students to feel that there is a distance between how they think/feel and how the teachers think/feel. Since the students are more emotionally and psychologically attached to their friends, they feel more comfortable to discuss their issues with them and accept their responses more openly and easily. This fact relates directly to how much they are influenced by their friends.

For these reasons, I believe that students are more influenced by their friends than by their teachers.