Teachers

I wanted to post a video for my "Teachers" blog and came upon this and it's extremely powerful. What would we do without google and youtube??

My dad recently told me that some teachers in Seattle were going on strike and demanding higher pay and less students per class. After he told me that he said, "They aren't thinking about the students!" I thought about it for a second and realized that it has everything to do with the students. In my opinion it's in every child's best interest to be in a classroom with not too many students. I guess "too many" would be 25-30 students in a classroom because it's really not a good learning environment when it gets to be that many. From my experience in high school when I was in a larger classroom it felt more like the teacher was babysitting rather than teaching us. Many students didn't respect teachers , I feel, mostly because they weren't able to handle so many of us in one room. Most of the time they'd say "be quiet" or "sit down" and be taken away from what they were talking about. I, of course, wasn't one of those kids but unfortunately there are students who go to school just to go to school. I think many of them do because some teachers are overwhelmed with the amount of kids in their classes and don't make the students want to go back. I had a friend who I would always see in the hall and it made me sad because I want him to succeed in life and I know skipping class isn't going to do him any good. After asking him why he does it he told me that the teacher kicked him out. Believe it or not, that did happen at my school. I think that if the classroom were smaller and teachers were able to have total control, not like in the reading by Kozol, but in a way that students understand what needs to be done than schools in general would be much better.

My calculus teacher would constantly remind us that we were the ones who would be taking the AP test, not him, and it was our responsiblity to listen, pay attention, and take notes. As obvious as that may seem it truly opened my eyes. To have a teacher who cared so much about his students success made me wish that everyone could be taught by him. Im not trying to say that all teachers aren't able to handle their classes but i honestly think it would benifit everyone if classroom were smaller.

The fact that teachers demanded a pay increase is understandable because in my opinion and I think many other people believe teachers aren't paid enough. The way I see it is that without teachers there wouldn't be the doctors or lawyers because in many ways we have all gotten to where we are today because of our teachers. If a parent or family member didn't teach us how to read then it was a teacher who did. I just think that many people don't realize how important teachers are and take them for granted.