Ever since I was a child, I knew I came from a family who have taught in public schools throughout the years. I think growing up with family members who teach, has given me an appreciation for teachers.

My mother teaches freshman English, and I applaud her for that. Ever since middle school, she has shared with me some of the things that she deals with daily in her classroom. She has told me about students who would roll their eyes or even cuss out my mom while she’s teaching. There were some days where my mom would just go on the couch, and ask for at least 15 minutes to sit down because it was a rough day for her.

It breaks my heart to know that there are students who think it’s okay to treat teachers any way that they want to. Teachers are human beings, who have earned a degree to teach, and should not be treated like objects. 

The way that teachers are being treated made me change my major during my first year in college. I felt that it’s not worth it to teach students if there are kids, even young adults, who would treat instructors with little to no respect.  

There are times where I wish I would have spoken up to defend some teachers in my life, rather than just sit and stare with a blank face while my peers were saying very rude and hurtful remarks to the instructor. 

I specifically remember back in 8th grade where I had a teacher who was in her second year of teaching pre-algebra. One day, a girl from my class started raising her voice saying hurtful remarks while our instructor was trying to teach us. “Can’t you do anything in this class right?,” “Oh no, she’s about to cry!,” “What a bunch of bullsh*t.” It was hard to listen to the comments that girl made that day. 

As I am in my second year of college, I have noticed that the attitude towards our instructors has gotten worse on campus.There was one time where one of my professors asked about the light preference for us, since we were about to watch a video to help us understand our topic better, and a student in the class asked if we could keep the lights half-on/ half-off. The professor couldn’t quite hear them that well and asked if they could say it again, and they responded back with, “You heard what I said.”  

 I can understand where we all have those moments where we’re aggravated at a professor over a bad grade or not explaining a subject in full detail, but to be disrespectful, especially in front of a whole classroom, is a boundary that is crossed. Although, I don’t quite understand students who would talk back to their professors over a class that they paid for. 

Even though I have an appreciation for teachers, I wish more students, or peers would give more validation to their instructors. With everything that has been going on in the education system due to COVID-19, educators have been trying the best they can do to help students succeed in the best way possible. 

I also believe that if teachers don’t receive more validation from their students, there will be a teacher shortage worse than there is already within the state of Louisiana. Louisiana being ranked the 48th state for education is bad as it already is, but if there is no control of students and the way that they speak to their instructors, we could end up as the 50th ranked state.