Teachers, Take Note

Teachers, Take Note

Melanie McCalip, Staff Writer

As much as us students love doing homework and staying up into the ungodly hours studying for tests the next morning, while being hammered with worksheets, essays, and deadlines, I think we deserve a little break. There are certain things that I feel teachers just don’t understand. Teachers, this one is for you.

First thing’s first, if a student doesn’t have their hand up, they clearly don’t want to be called on. Basics, guys. As much as I wished I knew the answer to your twenty-five step algebraic equation, I just don’t. So please don’t put me on the spot and then embarrass me in front of my peers. I’m sorry to disappoint you. I know I know, I wish I were a mathematical genius, too.

That brings me to my next point, when students don’t know what’s going, on that’s a sign! Especially when a whole entire class is confused, then we’ve got a real issue. When a student asks the teacher for help, we really do need help. Please don’t act like we, the people trying to learn about it, know everything you, the one specialized to teach it, do. We’re taking the class to learn (except the ones we’re required to) so please teach us, slowly, from the beginning, with patience.

I suppose being the highest scoring student in your class would be cool and all, but it looks like tutoring all the other kids in the class that don’t understand the lesson would be really tiring. Like I’m sorry we have a class full of rocks and a teacher minus the “teach.” Sitting in a room with an “er” and 20 other clueless kids for 42 minutes is a little rough.

Nothing irks me more than when a teacher goes on a rant about homework. I’m sorry I forgot to do your one point assignment. I’m drowning in seven other classes with fifteen homeworks, like, nine essays, four presentations to prepare, you get the point?

Not to mention kids with after school activities and jobs, we’re busy people! I apologize that we don’t dream about homework and sometimes forget about it, but i don’t think one singular point will determine the rest of the school year.

Between fast and slow, there is a perfect medium spot that one, is fair and two, doesn’t make us bored out of our minds. Sorry, but when a teacher teaches too fast, we get hecka lost and confused, especially when they keep going on and don’t stop to answer the billions of questions from the students. While on the other hand, when we grasp a concept and it gets stretched along with stories and extra definitions, we get quite bored very easily. After all, we do have the attention span of a goldfish.

Sometimes the pressure put on us to be the best in every class is quite stressful. As much as you’d like to believe that I spend all my free time daydreaming about formulas, iambic pentameters, and thesis statements, I just don’t. In fact, I don’t think any of us do. I’m sorry we aren’t always interested, or have the motivation to do work, but some things are on you, bud.

There’s always room for improvement and I promise if students requests are met, then we will be better, too.