Dear Teacher,

Thank you for staying and teaching me. I really, really appreciate it. I recognize the amount of work you put into teaching me and the other students in your classes, and I really admire that. 

However, I do believe that there are some things that can be improved. I would like to begin with homework. Homework is a tool that teachers use to make sure that students understand the material they are giving, but it can be overused. I have classes that give me 40+ problems a night, and that is just a lot. If the amount of homework we received would be decreased, I think that students would be able to actually learn and review instead of just stressing about getting it done.

 I would also like to talk about the material we cover in class. In some classes, we go over multiple lessons a day. This makes sense if the lessons go together and cover the same material, but they are separate lessons for a reason. If it was exactly the same stuff, there would only be one lesson for that topic. Each lesson should be gone over in its entirety and there should be time allotted for questions and review. This goes hand-in-hand with my homework theory, as reviewing every lesson would help students to understand the material better and partially remove the need for homework; there wouldn’t need to be as much review if the students understand the material to begin with. 

I will conclude with the fact that not all students have the same abilities. There are so many students at BHS, and they are all different. They have different levels of understanding, different lives, and different interests. I understand we offer multiple support groups for people, but if they are new, they might not feel safe or they might feel like they are not able to share with other people. I suggest that we give students the ability to participate anonymously. There could be an outreach group for students that allows them to share anonymously. The other people would be able to offer solutions and compassion (anonymously), and if they have things in common, they would be able to group together and bond; this would offer a sense of belonging to the students, which would help them be able to find their sense of self. 

This would allow students to not have to worry about feeling alone and feeling helpless, on top of the stress that is schoolwork, and be able to improve with their schoolwork and their lives.

Thank you for everything that you do. Thank you for the effort that you put into teaching us. I am eternally grateful for all of my teachers, because they make sure I stay educated and knowledgeable. I appreciate all of the work that everyone puts into making sure I have a good education that will take me places in life. Thank you.

Sincerely,

A Student