By Bryan Garcia and Tanya Soto
School is a daily routine. Five days a week, we meet up with our teachers in our ordinary classrooms. With this in mind, a great multitude of students feel that they don’t have a personal relationship with their educators, and some feel like their teachers lack effort when it comes to teaching.
Itzell Londono proclaimed, “I feel like most teachers do care, but [some teachers] just think that since we’re in high school, we should be extremely independent. I [strongly believe] having a close relationship and actually getting to know my teacher matters because it shows that they care. It proves that they’re trying to get to know you and I find that motivating.” To attest to this, Junior Paulina Salazar stated, “I appreciate when Mr. Vandal asks how I’m doing in other classes or school in general. It’s rare to have a teacher ask you that”.
On the other hand, Adolfo Cuamani claims that “At times I feel like they don’t care. They just pass out worksheets or send us to our laptops wanting us to teach ourselves. Sometimes, they just lack effort.” Even though there were students that aren’t necessarily satisfied with their teacher’s techniques, Christopher Aponte affirmed some perks: “Yeah, I’m pretty sure teachers care. They push us to strive to have better expectations [for ourselves]. However, they don’t teach us what we have to go through in life like taxes and such.”
Ms. Wong (CP and AP Physics teacher) declared, “I try to support my students and be there for my students, and I try to get to know my students. I care [to have] a personal, yet professional, relationship with my students.” Attesting to this teacher-student companionship, Chris Miguel(AP Calculus teacher) stated, “I care about my students’ grades and future. As a teacher, I do joke around with my students, but I don’t consider them as my friends. Regardless, I want them to work hard in my class in order for them to succeed in life.”
Judy Park, the school guidance counselor, confirmed, “I desire the best for my kids when it comes to their future. I believe that it is my job to have a personal relationship with them in order to better interact with my kids and get to know them better.” Candy Caldwell, the school psychologist, affirmed this, saying,“Although it’s not my job to be friends with the kids at Tustin High, I still care about what goes on in their lives. I want the family of tillers to maintain happy, steady lives when it comes to their future.”
Students spend a great majority of their days at school. A fraction of students aren’t even aware of who the person standing in front of them are or even how much these instructors really care. Students really do strive toward building at least some sort of relationship their teachers. Although we may not have the privilege of calling our teachers our “friends”, we can still call these staff members as people who care about our future.
Does that mean that all teachers care about their students? Not always as it seems. But when it comes to the staff members that were interviewed in this questionnaire, we can definitely say that these staff members of Tustin High definitely want the best in our lives.