Imagine walking into your classroom on the first day of school. You look around and all you see are desks, chairs and a blackboard. You feel slight discomfort by the white stone walls closing in on you. It does not seem like a very enjoyable environment for a student. That is a government funded classroom.

Now imagine a whole different scene. Walking in and having bright colors explode in your face. Every which way you turn there are funny or inspirational posters on the wall. You sit in your desk and there are markers and pencils and crayons galore. Puzzles to be made and books to be read. Your teacher can look down and see all the bright smiles on the student’s faces. Knowing that such a positive environment can increase the children’s eagerness to learn. This is all thanks to a teacher funded classroom. They bring in light to the class.

Over vacation I overhead my aunt and mother talk about my sister and her job. My sister, Erica Abrams, is a fairly new Kindergarten teacher at William McKinley Elementary in Indianapolis, Indiana. She got her job acceptance right before she graduated college. So at the young age of 22 she was doing the job she has always wanted to do; teach children. But the stresses that come along with being a teacher, let alone a new teacher can be a lot. At the beginning of her job she said she had to spend “a minimum of $500 and a maximum of $800” on necessities for her students. These items consisted of “storage, books, paper, writing utensils, posters, etc,” Miss Abrams told me. I asked her about how she felt about getting such little supplies for her class. She said that “barely receiving anything from the school is pretty frustrating. But I know that spending for this stuff now is an investment and it is worth it for the kids.” Most teachers have to go through and do a lot for their students, but to them it is worth it.

I think we kind of jump over everything teachers actually do for their students. Because they surely do more than just teach. My sister finds that there is a lack of appreciation towards teachers, “because people don’t understand how much we have to teach beyond curriculum, they just think it’s just coloring and songs." Regardless of what people think, underestimating their work invalidates the education field as a whole. It is not right to say they do that little when they actually do so much for their students. For Miss Abrams the things she does on a daily basis include way more than songs, reading, and math, “I’ve checked for lice, loved on kids who aren’t loved at home, taught social skills, manners, and treated them like my own.” Teachers may have only signed up to teach, but they know beforehand that the job is so much more.

The teaching field is not a field you just spontaneously end up in. You really have to love what you’re doing because it’s not a job you go into for the money. The majority of people do respect teachers. But its not a matter of respect as much as it is recognizing everything they can do for their student. I can't fathom having the patience for a group of children, of any age. So, I recognize and praise your patience. So thank you to the teachers who go above and beyond. To the teachers who treat their students as their own. To the teachers that develop a bond to each of their students. Most of all thank you to the teachers who constantly motivate their students to do better. Giving them a strong academic environment so they will actually want to learn. Work is hard, school is hard, bring the two together can make the job difficult sometimes. Teachers have rough days and just like everyone else, they need to be appreciated.

They work so incredibly hard for their students, doing more than the general curriculum. Thank you teachers. I appreciate you.