Teachers’ influence is powerful

Since we’re in March now, which is Women’s History Month, I thought it’d be a good time to acknowledge some of the great women in our town. (Men’s History Month is November so I’ll address men’s contributions when it’s appropriate.)

Arguably, among the most influential women are our schoolteachers. Since most of our teachers are female, and historically, have been, at some point or another they’ve had the chance to influence many children in our community.

While most of these teachers are sufficient in teaching Nevada’s core subjects and standards, there’s other, more personal, areas they can improve.

Personally, each of my female teachers influenced a lot of my thinking at the time. I can remember parroting some of their mannerisms, phrases and explanations. None of this is inherently bad or wrong, it just helps build a young person’s mind.

At times, many of my female teachers have had to become therapists, sympathizers, motivational speakers and advisers. This holds true for other girls I went to school with. None of this is part of their job description, yet many go out of their way to help those in challenging situations. They realize they’re dealing with young people who don’t know how to deal with the world yet.

It can be incredibly hard for teachers to only teach their subjects. That’s also an unrealistic way of thinking about their job.

It’s important to address this because these women are helping shape the thinking of future generations to come out of this town. Since these women have a huge audience, it gives them the opportunity to enlighten and mentally challenge young minds.

Yet, I don’t feel like that’s really being done on a large scale

I’ve seen a lot neglect and disregard of children’s feelings from teachers and staff. Suppression isn’t good for anyone’s mind, especially a child who doesn’t understand his or her own feelings. Instead kids are expected to accept poor advice or explanations. Who does that really help?

I would like to see people given actual answers. I would like to see people who are exposed to different ways of thinking and solving problems. I would like to see less judgmental people and more who listen and respect others.

I’d like to see young adults graduate school with strong minds that will have a passion to form questions. I’d like to see them research information presented to them throughout their lives because facts we know now will change.

Unfortunately, I don’t see a lot of this type of person in our town.

I do not intend to offend people with this; instead it is meant to be thought about, inspire action and handled accordingly.

I understand this dilemma isn’t entirely the teachers’ fault. Home life is an essential key to creating healthy minds and attitudes. However, children don’t choose their parents, but teachers choose to teach.

Our female teachers have more influence on all of this simply because there’s more of them.

So, while our female teachers are a large part of our history and still are, we should be grateful for them. They do incredible things for our community, such as teaching children how to read and write. While there are many who go beyond basic job descriptions, there’s still many who do nothing besides presenting information to their students.

It is my hope that by bringing this to light, it will give the community the opportunity to improve and grow. The way to start that is by listening with an open mind concerning the problems.

Emily Anderson is a student at College of Southern Nevada High School. She can be reached at anderemily001@gmail.com.