The State University of New York Charter Schools (SUNY) has proposed a new plan for hiring teachers.

This plan would allow charter schools to create their own teacher training programs to certify their teachers -- therefore, no longer requiring them to follow public school requirements. Elizabeth Harris writes in her New York Times article that the debate on this topic will be “fierce.”

When a child’s education is at stake, it is worrying to hear about schools doing things unconventionally in order to staff their classrooms. Children are the future, myself included. I am a young college student with lots of aspirations and many life lessons to still learn. I personally was educated by a charter school, so this issue has a strong prevalence to myself.

I attended a charter school from 6th to 12th grade.

It was a brand new start-up school created by women who had higher hopes for the educational standards in our state. The trend extended, and soon Arizona became booming with charter schools opening up left and right. Arizona has a reputation of being one of the worst states in America for education as a whole. Funding, educational standards, or even a child's chance of reaching the success rate -- you name it, we fail at it. While it’s impossible for a few charter schools to make a state wide change, it’s a start.

Charter schools are a relatively new concept to my part of Arizona.

I remember mothers scoffing at my parent’s decision to allow me to be “a guinea pig student.”

We don’t like unconventionalism when it comes to topics as valuable as education. It’s a common assumption that classrooms should be blackboards and textbooks -- like the good old days. Our world has evolved into a vibrant, technology fueled engine, yet our classrooms haven’t officially evolved with it. To say my modernized charter school was the best experience educational experience I could ask for would be a lie. I am not writing to promote enrolling in your local charter school, I am writing to defend my teachers and the future of education.

A summary of my charter school years is: good teachers are the foundation of a successful school.

Whenever my school had growing pains, which we had our fair share of them, many would ask me why I still stay in my school when there were well-established public schools in the area.

My answer was simple: “I have good teachers.”

I had a rainbow of different of teachers. My first class would be taught by a retired college professor and my second would be a fresh college graduate. Some of my best teachers I ever had at that school were teachers who never intended on being teachers.

People who aspired to be marine biologists and political speech writers became the teachers who made me love to learn. They didn’t go to college to study lesson plan drafting and how to create a welcoming classroom environment with cute little discipline systems. We often sugarcoat education in middle school - high school years. It’s not just what you learn, it’s the experience of learning. The most colorful classroom filled with inspirational posters and perfectly printed, textbook homework assignments does not represent the best teachers.

An educational background is only a piece of being a good teacher.

The good teachers were the ones who loved what they did. The good teachers were the ones who wanted to give us knowledge we can apply in higher education or professional fields, not to pass a standardized test. Remove the brightly colored door decorations and hand painted solar system projects, what did you retain from your twelve years of schooling experience?

Not every teacher my charter school hired was a shining star.

It’s a price you pay when hiring outside of the education major safety zone. My school had handfuls of employment replacements mid-school year for a multitude of reasons.

The simple fact was: just because you think you can be a teacher, doesn’t mean you deserve to be one.

The nationwide teacher shortage has caused many states and educational organizations to question our traditional school system. Critics have stated the proposal in place for charter schools to individually certify their own breed of educators that makes being a teacher too easy. Others say this will create too much inconsistency amongst different schooling programs. Stating that allowing charter schools to be responsible for their own teaching accreditations, may or may not be the answer.

From a student perspective, reading articles about people like SUNY questioning and trying to shape our education system is progress enough for me. As our world changes, our educational standards need to change with it. Starting with the root, good educators.

As a student who experienced a well-rounded group of educators, there’s no secret recipe for the perfect teacher. There is also no easy answer for any question lingering in the United State education system. Conversation and ideas are encouraging signs of perhaps a different educational future.

Take it from a girl who graduated from a "guinea pig" school, don’t be afraid of much-needed change in our school systems.