Yeah. Respect is key to teaching as with many other things. Which means earned respect. There’s not a thing wrong with people respecting whatever authority figure enough to listen and pay attention to what they have to say. In teaching as in many other domains, it’s a necessary part of having a positive interaction on all sides. But whenever someone says it’s the student’s (or whoever’s) role to respect the teacher (or whoever) unconditionally, and the teacher doesn’t have to earn the respect or demonstrate that they’re worthy of having it placed on them, the student just has to pretend to it and act accordingly, that’s a huge red flag about how they look at the intended interaction.

Someone questioning what you’re saying is – most of the time – showing that they take the whole endeavor seriously enough to ask questions openly and learn. You addressing the question effectively, even if the question is “wrong” or not on the same page as what you’re teaching, is a chance to earn genuine respect and encourage your students to be genuine about their side of it. I love when that stuff happens. But, you have to actually be worthy of respect to welcome that interaction…