Disclaimer: By writing this article, I am not solidifying the fact that your teacher does not hate you. This is only an assumption. I will also assume that if you suffer from the following: slacking, laziness, overly cheekiness, jock-syndrome, super sass or just unfortunate luck, your teacher may hold you in contempt.
In the fifth grade, I thought my English teacher hated me. People, you have to understand, this was a travesty! This was a borderline nervous breakdown for a ten-year-old child who compared receiving A's in class to getting that one way ticket to Disneyland. I could never understand why my sentences had to be Old Testament proper combined with an imperturbable attitude about the long trips from my teacher's desk and back. Repeat. It seemed that I could never get it right. Why? Why me? Why did I have to work so hard on one stupid essay? What did I do to deserve such cruel and unusual punishment? This is the event that began it all.
In high school, I knew that my teachers hated me. The problem is that many of the teachers for high school are finished before it starts. You can see it in the way they move, the way they talk, the way they hide out in that secretive teacher's lounge plotting against us. They actually want you to do work and turn it in on time. If you're like me and procrastinate severely, you know that you immediately have a target on your back. It's that uncomfortable moment when you know you haven't finished any work in the past week and you steadily avoid eye contact or any form of communication. I suppose this could have been the reason... but even when I worked hard, it wasn't good enough. They were always pushing that I "try harder" and that "they knew I could do better." How ridiculous! I especially knew they hated me when they continued to suggest colleges that were 40,000 dollars a semester or more.
It wasn't until college that I finally realized... Maybe, just maybe, those teachers didn't hate me. I didn't realize until I encountered my first college paper and my first college test (I was not impressed with the grades on both). All those times that I failed to turn in my work or procrastinated until the last minute were not acceptable in this foreign land. Can you say, "mind blown?" Who knew that I would need all of the skill-building from the tasks that my teachers gave me? Who knew I would benefit learning how to articulate myself and participate in intellectual conversation? My entire public school career I assumed that all of the effort, time, and energy that teachers put into students went into making sure we didn't walk in through the exit door at Walmart.
In all seriousness, teachers are amazing people! These are people who offer themselves to educate the youth of the country. The job is not easy. They invest abundantly and often receive little in return. Teachers, if you are reading, you are some of the best the community has to offer. This is my ode to you. This is also my advice to young students to appreciate your educators. It may seem that they are singling you out or being a bother, but in the end they are there to help raise you to a higher level of self. One day you will look back, like I did, and realize that you won that fifth grade writing contest because one teacher pushed you. Or you will look back and find that these people are still your main support and greet you with smiles at your success.
Never take a teacher for granted! Trust me, they do not hate you!
Signed,
Your neighborhood teacher's pet,
Tamera Adams
