The Mycenaean

Teachers who make education  engaging are the teachers we need. What exactly are the qualities of a teacher that makes school engaging? After interviewing a few students of various different age groups I’ve come across the same recurring answer. “A teacher who cares about their students enough to take their time and effort into incorporating more than the bare minimum when it comes to the curriculum.” When asked the follow up question of what that extra effort looked like they listed things such as games, movies, small video clips or memes. 

Students get excited for their class, willing to participate and engage because it is actually worthwhile. Teachers who put in more effort than the bare minimum of what is needed to teach a class are ones that should be appreciated as they make the students interested and decrease their stress. 

Many Teenagers Do Not Look Forward To School

People often become heavily unmotivated when the topic of school is brought up in a conversation. This unmotivation for school stems from different reasons such as teachers, work, family issues, etc. While some of those inconveniences listed before are unchangeable, there is one aspect of school that can make a students day even the slightest bit better — teachers. Teachers and staff play a significant role in a child’s experience at school. They can determine whether it is a good day for them or an unmotivating time. 

How Can Teachers Affect the Students’ Outlook on Their Day?  

“Some teachers with bad attitudes or who act like their job isn’t somewhere they want to be can make it hard for students because then we’ll start feeling more like burdens. It’s some teachers who come into work though like they love their job and like they were meant to be a teacher, lighthearted and it just makes everything better. The stress of being a highschool student especially since I’m a freshman starts to be easier to deal with,”  said Marcquis W., a freshman at LRHS. 

The experience with uninterested authority figures is something not only highschoolers can relate to, but adults as well. Adults may have had an encounter with a boss who was not satisfied with how their day is going and in turn takes it out on them — it can ruin a whole day. As humans, we would like to believe that we are our own person, but in reality the emotions of others do affect our own no matter how hard we try to avoid it. 

When teachers come into work and put their other emotions aside in order to give students encouragement, it shows that they care. That the students are not in it alone. 

We are all humans, so we have bad days sometimes. But when we put aside our feelings in order to make someone feel heard, especially during bad times it can be very impactful. 

We thank the teachers that take the time to make learning fun, no matter how determined some students can be with going against the grain. Teachers who make it worthwhile are teachers who allow the school system to thrive the way it was designed to.