So here's something that's been on my mind a lot lately. Why do we distribute funds to public schools in the way we do here in the Untied States? Funding for public schools is based on property tax, so a neighborhood with a lot of well-off families will have well-funded schools. And that's great. I'm all for well-funded schools. The problem starts when we look at neighborhoods where families just don't have the same assets. Neighborhoods that pay less in taxes get less back in their school systems. I still can't figure out why we do it this way. It only perpetuates the vicious cycle: students don't get a quality education in the public schools, many drop out of school (Why should they stay if they're not going to learn anything anyway?) and end up in low-paying, dead-end jobs, so that when they have kids, the cycle can start over. I admit that I came from an affluent neighborhood and from a school that had enough funding to educate its students well. But looking back, the day my AP Chemistry teacher threw a sizeable chunk of sodium into a bucket of water just to show is that it explodes was probably not the best use of funds. Why can't we take some of the funding away from the rich suburban schools and redirect it in a way that can be beneficial for American schools as a whole? I am ashamed to think that some schools have money to literally throw around, while others do not have what they need to teach adequately.

People teach for a lot of different reasons. The whole "Those who can't do, teach" stigma gives teachers kind of a bad name. But I know many people who CAN do who WANT to teach. That's why I'm in this business. I want to teach. I've had so many good teachers who have helped make me the person I am today, and I want to have an impact on someone's life in the same way. There are a lot of different attributes for good teachers. I think among the most important are patience and understanding. Not all students are going to have the same abilities and interests, and it's such a hard balance to strike. Teachers want to challenge the strongest students without leaving the weakest in the dust. How do you do that? And how do we most effectively learn? Do we need to have work to learn? I don't think so, although it is important to reinforce learning in some way. So when does work become "busy work?" Of course, as teachers, we want students to get the most out of our subject as we can, but we can't overwhelm them. Again, we need to strike a balance. And that's something we figure out the more we teach. As teachers, we never stop learning. And I think that's so cool.