Due to the shortage of proper funding, public schools are unable to afford young, energetic teachers, being left with older teachers who lack motivation to teach.  This factor can be extremely dangerous towards a student’s learning environment, for their lack of eagerness upon teaching can truly affect a student’s outlook upon learning and the importance of education. For instance, in Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol, Kozol states that “the problem is systemic: The number of teachers over 60 years of age in the Chicago system is twice that of the teachers under 30. The salary scale, too low to keep exciting, youthful teachers in the system, leads the city to rely on low-paid subs, who represent more than a quarter of Chicago’s teaching force” (63).  This demonstrates a significant issue upon a student’s lack of a proper education in poor public schools, and that is the inability of keeping younger teachers in public schools due to low wages. Not being able to provide students with young and energetic teachers is highly harmful towards a students learning environment, for the elderly teachers are unable to perform their teaching abilities with great enthusiasm and that attitude can easily be spread throughout the entire class. That can undoubtedly transition students into a mood of carelessness towards learning. Its so unfortunate how the children who does not have the utmost choice of picking private schools over the urban public schools “are the kids most in need, and they get the worst teachers. You need an outstanding teacher” (Kozol 103). Poor funding towards urban public schools are truly taking a tole upon the students, especially when it comes to funding proper, passionate teachers. The students are not being taken seriously by the teachers and the students eventually begin to lose faith in themselves which optimistically results with students becoming aware of their own failures and self-worth.

PIE

            Students soak in the negative and positive influences from a teacher whens its being reflected upon education, so a passive teacher will result in changing the entire learning attitude for students in a negative way.  For instance, in The Passion Project, which was organized by Skye Ontiveros and created by college students, an argument about passion coming from students’ perspective, claimed that “we kinda have to know about the teacher and we gotta feel like the teacher is real, like he really or she really truly wants to help us” (5).  This shows that students strives to do better, with the knowledge of knowing that the teacher is interested in benefiting a student with an efficient education.  But if a student witnesses an impassionate teacher who isn’t very thrilled with teaching and does not connect with their students, the class itself will feel the exact way with learning, which creates a negative attitude throughout the entire classroom.  Instead of being extremely passive, teachers should be required to connect with their students with a positive attitude, “instilling passion…constant communication with the students and constant reassurance” (Ontiveros 6).  It is extremely essential for a teacher to have an encouraging attitude towards teaching, connecting with their students and creating ways to make students become more insightful with the meaning of passion.  This will result with a student who will engage themselves with school in a positive manner, and will most likely strive to do better with learning.

            Teachers who are impassionate about teaching, promotes an attitude like they’re not taking students’ educational values as seriously as they should.  This issue can easily transition to students wanting to rebel against teachers when it comes to the importance of their education.  For example, Jeff Bliss, a student who walks out of his class due to the actions of his passive teacher, states, “You gotta, you gotta take this job serious.  This is the future of this nation” (Bliss).  Bliss is referring to how teachers, in general, are in need to take the initiative to realize how necessary it is to teach the incoming generation of students with great passion, and demonstrate the importance of education to their students, which will eventually be the future of our nation. Teachers do not understand how important they are, especially if it’s in regards to a student’s success with education, for they are our main foundation towards a path of success with education.  Students are most likely prone to failure with the lack of a strong foundation from their teachers.  Teachers who views their job as “oh this is my paycheck” (Bliss) and not viewing their job as to benefiting students to a greater future or career and are setting a bad example of the importance of where education can take a person.  Teachers are a physical example of where education can take you in life and are suppose to be inspiring role models for students, for they are the ones who open doors to greater opportunities for the future.  A teacher, who doesn’t take their job seriously and not understanding the consequences of how that attitude can affect their students learning ability, is extremely harmful to a students’ educational path.

            Impassionate teachers, which highly affect their way of teaching, lead to students who become uninterested about learning.  For example, I have encountered myself with professors at Chabot College who always have a similar statement towards students throughout the first week of a semester, and it would be stated after he or she would go over the syllabus and discussing the amount of work and hours we should put into our work then goes off to a discouraging message like “if the work I’m providing to you is way too difficult, out of your range, or your just going to right off the back not even try, then I suggest that you should drop out of my class immediately/right this instant”.  As a student, listening to that type of tone and message from a college professor is declaring upon their students is pretty hurtful and dispiriting.  It makes us feel like a waste of time or generates a sense of lack of intelligence, for we begin to question our abilities with learning and determining whether we’re smart enough for the class.  This then leads to students not wanting to take education seriously due to discouraging comments like that, especially when its coming from a teacher or professor, for they are suppose to be highly encouraging and a constant reminder upon why education is an essential to becoming successful.  Teachers do not only need to be the ones to give students constant reassurance with learning but are also suppose to keep students interested with learning by producing differently teaching techniques.  For example, in the article ‘Passionate Teachers Create Passionate Students’ by Mary G. Powell, Powell states that “by handing some of the teaching materials over to the students, you are letting them know that you trust them and feel they are responsible and intelligent enough to be involved in their own education” (53).  This demonstrates an efficient teaching style that most teachers should take in consider of, for it allows students to take accountability of learning something by handing it over to them rather than just teaching everything word by word.  It permits students to take ownership of their own learning, which eventually result with students being more engaged, and cooperative with learning.

TED Talk Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the Learning Revolution

Sir Ken Robinson’s view upon our current education system is extremely accurate and I honestly agree with the ideas he is portraying upon the deficiency of diverse talents that are being crushed by the lack of support from teachers and parents.  In order for us students to flourish into our own individuals, discovering our passion and talents, we would need to reform the main foundations of our success and that is the our education system.  We need to get rid of the linearity and conformity models that education is being based upon and personalize education that is more relative to the students rather than following a linear pattern.  I totally agree with Robinson’s point that we are too obsessed with the idea of getting people to college.  I totally understand the main point of furthering and progressing our intelligence/education by attending college, but I believe that we shouldn’t be forced to admit ourselves into college the very instant we graduate from high school.  We should take the time to discover ourselves by our talents and passion, which will eventually lead to a career that we would enjoy rather than endure.  Parents and teachers believes that taking a break from school or being undecided is a waste of time, for time is precious and should be used wisely in college with a professional career in mind, that will provide us with a sufficient salary but what if we end up with a career that isn’t enjoyable, but is simply just a pay check.  Then we will become impassionate with our career choice and basically live life unhappily, looking forward to the weekends.  Robinson is correct about students opting out of education for it does not feed student’s spirits due to no type of excitement that isn’t occurring in class, this is one of the major issues teachers needs to refocus on to better the pathway for a student’s learning ability.

Reeling in Research

            The Passion Project intersects with the writing assignment: Rule of Three by the absolute idea of the importance of a passionate teacher and how much that can effect a student’s ability of learning.   In the case of being disobedient in a classroom setting, it should be highly effective towards a teacher who lacks passion when it comes to teaching.  They both connect, for on the writing assignment: Rule of Three, I created an argument that, we as students should be attentive to disobedient acts towards teacher’s who are not passionate in a classroom environment and in The Passion Project, students argues that teachers need to have passion in their vocabulary while teaching, for they need to show interest in education and in the students to show the importance of a students’ success.  Teacher’s doesn’t understand that they are extremely influential towards our education, so if they aren’t passionate about teaching us how are we as students suppose to do the same when it comes to learning?  Teacher’s are the models of education and are the reasons to why education is valuable, but with a passive teacher, students will have that same attitude towards learning. An in-passionate teacher can lead to a disinterested student, so it is a teacher’s job to make learning interesting and somewhat relevant to a students’ life.  For instance in the article ‘Passionate Teachers Create Passionate Students’, by Mary G. Powell, Powell states that the  “two major keys to getting students excited about their own learning are to give them involvement in their learning and to present information in a way that is relevant to their lives today” (54).  This shows that allowing for a student to get involved with their learning like having group projects, allows them to create their own ideas and presenting it to class creates a different approach on learning, which may be more efficient for the students who learns by being interactive with their work.  And making the material more relative to their lives will allow students to be more engaged with what they learn in class.  When it comes to education, students need a teacher to explain to them the entire purpose of learning and to remind us constantly on why exactly we are in school, vice versa.  Rather than simply teaching us the material word from word, through lectures and PowerPoints’ and being the main focus of the class, the teacher should connect with the class by being apart of the circle.  With that in mind, Powell states, “I am giving little or no satisfaction in the learning itself to the student…I am telling my students, ‘Learn this because I said so’” (53).  This statement, which is from a teacher’s perspective, shows that simply telling students to learn something because a teacher is telling them to, without any knowledge of why exactly they are learning something will disengage a student from connecting to the material or even get a better understanding of what they are learning.  Ultimately, teachers needs to take the initiative to be more passionate about teaching and understand their entire purpose when it comes to the incoming generation of students and remember why exactly they chose that career in the first place.  Teachers are the building foundations of a students success in life, so with a lack of a strong foundation, student’s will be prone to failure.

Powell, Mary G. "Passionate Teachers Create Passionate Students." The Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin n.d.: 52-54. Print.