What do we, the students, need from our teachers?

Being a student in middle school is not easy. However, being a student in a middle school with teachers that teach straight out of the textbook is even worse. We, as students, need teachers that teach us things that are outside of the textbook, things that we will need for the rest of our lives. I'm not saying that we don't need writing or math skills in our lives, but skills like working with a group, not giving up, and being open-minded are also extremely important.

Teachers should challenge us. They should give us, students, difficult tasks that doesn't just require knowing facts and figures, but thinking outside of the box, and coming up with different ways of solving a hard problem, even when it seems impossible. In other words, teachers should have us do activities that teach us persistence, particularly to not give up, no matter what happens. Just because the "traditional approach" doesn't work, kids should try another way to solve a problem instead of giving up. This leads me to my next point, innovation.

We are now in the 21st century. No more obsolete ways of teaching, or outdated ways of solving problems by flipping through a textbook. As 21st century learners, we, the kids, need to be innovative and creative when it comes to learning. Beyond what we learn in textbooks, we need teachers to encourage us to be original, and to not fear failure, for failure leads to success. In the WWP school district, we are now using Chromebooks in nearly all of our classes. It is our textbook, calendar, notebook, and much more. We have said goodbye to the traditional pen and paper ways of learning. We now have the entire internet at our fingertips, letting us explore other ways to overcome challenges. 

One of the 21st century competencies, "collaborative team member", is no longer restrained to a physical meeting. Google hangouts has allowed us to work on group projects from the comforts of our own homes. Google Drive allows us to all work on the same document at the same time, edit each others' work, and post comments on the final products. By using new technologies, we are redefining what it means to be a collaborative team member, Of course, teachers still need to provide us the opportunities to work with a group in order for us to learn this skill.