The student-teacher relationship is just about as important to learning as gasoline is to a car. In an ideal world, students and teachers would coexist in a productive manner and share a mutual respect for each other, making education fun for everyone. Unfortunately, we do not live in that world.

While teachers preach that they respect each and every student unconditionally, that does not seem to be the case. Granted, it’s pretty tough to make a generalization about the entire staff, but I can confidently say that this applies to the majority of the faculty. It just seems a little farfetched to expect kids to act like adults while treating them like children.

Several rules and policies are flat out insulting to students, and even though the school might believe it is in our best interest to abide by them, the main purpose they seem to serve is making students aware that they are lower on the food chain.

For example, it is absurd that teachers will deny a student permission to use the bathroom during class or limit the amount of times a student can go to the bathroom in a semester. Some teachers say they only allow students to use the restroom if it’s an emergency. What I want to know is since when do we need to be on the brink of wetting ourselves to go to the bathroom? Shouldn’t being in a state of discomfort be enough to warrant a trip to the restroom? I know teachers do this because they’re afraid kids will wander the hallways, but isn’t that why we have security guards dispersed throughout the school? It’s hard to picture a teacher getting up at staff meeting to excuse themselves to the bathroom and a department head saying, “Sorry, but you’ve already used both of your bathroom passes this semester.”

This kind of attitude towards students only adds tension to an already fragile relationship. Another rule that seems to degrade students is the new cell phone policy. In reality, the only new part of this policy is that if you’re caught with a phone, the teacher must stop everything that is going on in class, call the main office and have a security guard pick up the phone. Teachers say that cell phones are a major distraction. It’s more distracting when a teacher sends the room into DEFCON 1, alerts the main office of the threat level, and security has to come in and eliminate the target.

Students need phones to stay in touch with parents and others about after-school activities and other important things. Obviously phones are often used for other purposes, but is it really the end of the world if a student takes 10 seconds out of class to talk to a friend? Moreover, is it bad enough that we need a school policy that wastes time while deliberately embarrassing the student involved?

I hate to sound narcissistic, but isn’t school supposed to be about the kids? More often than not it seems that teachers are against us rather than for us. Teachers seem to err on the side of “teaching us a lesson” rather than helping us find a solution when we come across a problem.
Now you might perceive this as another whiny brat from CHS bitching about how hard his over-privileged life is, but I’m not speaking for the kids who get everything they want and expect the same from their teachers. I’m speaking for the teenagers who don’t need a good scolding as much as they need a helping hand. And I would think teachers would much rather be respected because they’ve earned it rather than because it is required. I’ve had a hand full of teachers who made me feel that they genuinely wanted to help me, not because it was their job, but because they respected me and wanted me to succeed. But the fact is that many teachers seem to carry themselves with some sort of chip on their shoulder and treat students as if they are all trying to get away with something. Perhaps it would be best for the staff to stop sweating the small stuff and focus on issues that pose a larger threat to the quality of the school.