Friday, April 24, 2020

Teacher appreciation, will it continue?


Teachers are, in my opinion, selfless heroes. They are often unappreciated and underfunded. Ask any teacher and they will tell you that they are not in the classroom because of the money, the appreciation, or the respect, but because they genuinely care about the learning and well being of every single student in their classroom. They care about each student that comes through their classroom. Teachers also do not just care about a child for a year, but for a lifetime. These teachers will go above and beyond for their children, and that is exactly how they see their students. Each student is an extension of their family. Every year when a teacher gets a new class, they get a new set of children that they will laugh with, cry with, worry about, and, most importantly, love as their own child. They spend eight hours every day talking to, teaching, and engaging with these kids. Yet, they are underappreciated.

When a student is hurting, so is his teacher. They want to help fix their problems. They want every child to succeed. Some people think that teachers became teachers because it is the easy route, that they wanted weekends, nights, and summers off. In reality that is not true. A teacher’s work is never done. Once they are done taking care of their school families, they go home and take care of their own families. Their work is truly never done.

When this pandemic started, you could see a flood of social media posts praising teachers. They spend all day teaching children, and as parents started realizing just how much work teachers were really doing during the day, parents decided to show that appreciation. But let me ask you a few questions: Why did it take a national emergency for people to appreciate these heroes, and how long after this is over will we still praise these teachers?

During these unprecedented times I have gotten to watch firsthand just how much these teachers truly care about their students, and I do mean every single student. I have watched the sadness as they realize that some students no longer get the escape of school and as they realize that their students are going to fall behind. They worry about what the student will eat and what kind of structure they have at home. I have watched as they worry about the students they have not heard from. But also, I have watched as they start to plan how to fix this. They are already making plans deciding how they will catch their students up when they finally get to see them again. All the while they are teaching themselves how to use new technology and doing everything they can to keep in contact with those students who are willing. They are pushing their students to be their best even when their students do not want to be pushed. When this is all over, these teachers are ready to go back to being the underappreciated, underfunded people they were before because they are doing it for their students.  

Someday these students will look back and appreciate the teacher that helped them through, that pushed them to be their best, to do their best. Students will appreciate the teachers that believed in them in even when they could not believe in themselves. But why should teaches have to wait years before they have someone appreciate them? I think it is time we let these teachers know that their work does not go unnoticed, and when this is all over, let’s not let our teachers go back to being unappreciated.

Friday, April 17, 2020

Is School the Most Important Thing During a Pandemic?

This title may seem daunting. We are teachers. Of course, school is important! But is it the most important thing? During this once in a lifetime (hopefully) pandemic, I have realized that school is not the most important thing. With all that is happening around us, it is difficult to focus on school when it seems so miniscule to everything else going on. While death and sickness rates continuing to rise, it seems odd to pursue grades the way we were before. Some teachers have backed off and realized that there are bigger things in our life going on, but some teachers have not. While online remote learning appears to be the only option, that does not make it an easy option.
Students went from doing schoolwork in places such as the library or in quiet buildings. Now, they have to do schoolwork in their homes, where it may not be that quiet and they may not have a table to set up on. For some students, the only safe place they could go was school. Not only was this taken away from them, but they still have to do their work at home. This makes focusing on school a lot harder than it ever was before. I have heard stories of students being given more homework than they are able to handle. While some students may have less on their plate since they do not have to be in the school building, this may not be true for all. As teachers, we worry about our students not learning enough, but we need to consider that it might just be too much. Teachers cannot keep pretending that assigning the same amount of work will work for the students. This may be a delicate balance, but I believe that the balance needs to be achieved, because school cannot be the same as before.

Friday, April 3, 2020

It Takes a Special Person to Be a Teacher


          Have you ever wondered who the most selfless people are on this planet? Have you ever thought who else is going to help your children become successful adults someday? Have you ever contemplated which occupation is the most thankless, but the employees don’t seem to mind? Well, I’ll tell you right now, the answer to all three of those questions is teachers. Here’s another question: why do people want to become teachers?

            As a current student at South Dakota State, I have looked back on my days in high school, but not to reminisce about what I did. I look back and focus on what my teachers each brought to the table. No teacher is alike, and I think that’s a very good thing. You need a variety of different personalities to have a successful school, in my opinion. But they all have the same objective in the long run: to give their students the tools necessary to be success after high school, and to see their students progress from start to finish.

            I have talked with many of my old high school teachers, and they are my biggest supporters about my wanting to become a teacher, along with my high school teacher parents. I’ve asked them if they’ve ever gotten sick of teaching, if they ever wonder if what they’re doing is effective, and if they enjoy their job. Not one teacher has told me they’ve ever gotten sick of it, and they 100% enjoy their job. Some have said they have contemplated their methods when they were first starting out, but most teachers at my school have been teaching at least 10 years, and they’re confident in their methods.

            I also asked some of my old teachers why they went into education. I got different variations of the same answer. And that answer was, “I wanted to make a difference.” All teachers, I believe, want to educate their students to let them to be successful. And teachers are willing to accept a low-salary compared to many other 4-year degrees because they care so much about the future of our world.

            I started off as an electrical engineering major when I first went to SDSU. The whole time I was there, I thought about getting my masters afterwards so I could become a lecturer at a university. Even when I was an engineering major, I still wanted to me a teacher. It’s because I have what many other teachers have: the passion for teaching. Nobody wants an unpassionate person to be teaching them. If the teacher isn’t passionate about what they’re teaching, how can you expect the students to be passionate about it?

            It truly takes a special person to be a teacher. In my case, I want to be a math teacher. I am taking almost all the same classes of a math major, which could get me a job as an actuary, a statistician, or a banker. Those jobs pay way more than a teacher. However, to me, those jobs don’t seem as important. Are they all important? Yes. But who do you think taught all the statisticians, actuaries, and bankers the information they need? Teachers. And they did it not for their own personal gain, but to help their students reach their goals.

            I hope this blog helps you all look at teachers with a little more respect, because they deserve it.