We are in school for twelve years, and maybe even more because of preschool and daycare, if you count that. As you get further and further into your education, you see more teachers throughout the day compared to the one teacher that you saw all day every day in elementary school. Personally, I have always liked to have a relationship with my teachers because it makes the school day more enjoyable, and in doing that, I have been able to talk to them about more than what they are required to teach. Many teachers are genuinely nice people, and they teach because they are passionate about it and love what they do. They want the best for their students, and they want them to succeed and actually grasp what they say. These are the people that are preparing us for the rest of our lives.

I was talking to a teacher one morning about how his weekend was, and he told me that he had graded essays all weekend, like it was a normal thing. Teachers spend more of their time at work or working on things for school than we could ever imagine. He didn’t complain about using his whole weekend to grade essays; the only thing he said to me was that he wished his students actually cared about the topic that they were writing on. If every student could put in just a little more effort and spend more than the night before the due date to write a paper, grades would go up, and people would be happier. There are those that don’t procrastinate and get better grades; at the same time, there are also the ones that wait until the night before and get frustrated when they don’t get the score that they wanted.

At our school, many of our teachers are athletic coaches as well, so some spend twelve hours a day either in the school or at sporting events. Yet, they still get up and are ready to teach every day and are ready to run practices after school. They still have all papers graded and lesson plans written out. Teachers are spectacular people. They have to take care of around two hundred students a day, and they are the last people that are getting us ready for the rest of our lives. Sure, we have professors in college, and many of them are great, but you are in a high school class with around only thirty others compared to three hundred.

Teachers deserve our respect because they want the best for their students, and they want to point us in the right direction. They deserve to be paid attention to and listened to. I am a student, and I get that life gets hectic, but for the hour that you are in their class’ be present.