Students are more influenced by their teachers than by their friends.
All of us are surrounded by different kinds of people every day. For students, when they are at school, they are mainly surrounded by teachers and their friends. Both of these two kinds of people have great influence on students. However, I still believe that friends have greater influence on students than teachers do.
Usually, a student and his friends are almost of the same age or at least the same age. Therefore, they will have a lot in common, such as hobbies. As a consequence, they can talk to each other and imitate each other’s behavior easily. My little brother and his friends are both interested in soccer games and they spend almost all their spare time talking about soccer games worldwide and great football players. What is more, my brother’s friend is a good soccer player and my brother tends to imitate his behavior. As a result, my chubby brother became better at sports, especially playing soccer. Meanwhile, a teacher will not have such great influence on a student since teachers have less in common with students.
Moreover, in most schools in my country, teachers just appear in front of students when there is a class and they will leave the classroom as soon as the class is over. Thus, students actually have limited time to communicate with their teachers. Even if they do have some time to discuss with their teachers, the topic of discussion is usually the subject in class. However, a student can have hundreds of different topics, ranging from daily life or school subjects, to talking with their friends. They have more time communicating and therefore, they know and understand each other better than their teachers. As for me, I can spend a whole day talking to my best friends but only an hour talking with my teachers.
In addition, an everlasting friend may have greater influence in the long run than a teacher. Some of our friends at school may become friends forever. This kind of friend will influence us even when we graduate. However, teachers, on the contrary seldom become everlasting during our lives. They will not have as great an influence in the long run as our friends do.
All in all, though I have to admit that teachers and friends both have great influence on students, I still believe that students are more affected by their friends. The more people have in common with you, the greater influence they will have on you. Therefore, a friend, who is the most similar to students, is the greatest influence during a student’s life.