Seriously, I taught high school English for over thirty years and I had roughly 130 to 150 students a day. I really did try to interact in some way with each one of them everyday, but I just couldn’t.

I did talk two kids out of committing suicide. I told a girl she shouldn’t go to community college and be a medical assistant when she was bright enough to be the doctor, and today she is one. I helped students out of abusive situations at home. But, before I could help with some of those problems, I had to know about them. My stories are not unusual. Teachers do these kinds of things all the time, but before we can understand a student, the student has to send us messages we can understand, and there has to be time in our days to receive and to understand.

I think they either grow tired of the jobs they do or lose interest in what they do and unfortunately the students pay for it.

They lose the love they once had for teaching or get into it for the wrong reasons.

Teachers understand students better when they are on the students and level and not above them.

Honestly, we TRY to understand our students and hope that they do the same for us. Most of the time we’re successful. If there’s something you really want to convey to your teachers, tell them. Sometimes we KNOW there’s something amiss but simply need some guidance in figuring out what it is.