Toulmin Teacher Argument

In today's society, teachers have become severely mistreated, grossly disrespected. Many debate over how to raise the status of teaching and how to promote the emergence of fresh, young teachers. As primary contributers to the cultivation of the youth of America, the teachers not only should be respected, but need to be respected in order to completely fulfill their duty to instill in the American youth a sufficient education. I agree with Vern William's statement in this article that teachers should be allowed more control over what and how they teach. Government workers, who may have never even spent time around typical high school students of the day, create a curriculum, decide what sources to use, and how the teacher should present the material. Why not leave at least some of those decisions to the ones who actually spend their time in the classroom with the students? Teachers get to know their students, the way they think, the way they learn. Teachers know what their students can and cannot do, and how best to present the subject material to each individual. By allowing them to take over part of the curriculum, and especially the way the curriculum is taught, teachers will gain respect in the classroom, and eventually in the country. The teachers that students remember and respect when they are grown are not the ones who sat reading from a text book, or who presented a powerpoint lecture every day. They are the ones who made learning a unique experience, who had real conversations with their students, who taught the kids more than just how to solve a logarithmic equation or what the Populist Party was. They are the ones who broke away from convention and grabbed the steering wheel of the classroom away from those who are used to making the decisions and used their influence to create not only an education for the students, but a life as well.