On why we need more teachers

Dear Ms. C,

What’s up? Mom and lil bro/sis are good.. So you asked me to write a letter about why we need more teachers in my school….

Here is my answer….

I don’t think people get how things are here. People don’t care about us and don’t think we are gonna be anything. They tell us to shut up and don’t wanna hear what we have to say. So I guess we start to think that what we gotta say don’t matter. We get angry and we don’t care anymore. Then teachers like you come in and try to care. At first we pretend that it don’t phase us. We act all hard like we don’t need that and we just ignore you. Then you don’t quit, you don’t leave us. You keep buggin us and show you care and respect us. We aint use to that with other teachers. We need more teachers like you Ms C. because you were the first person to ever ask me what was goin on with ME. To care about ME. Because you started to care about me I started to think about why. I started to realize that I could write good and that I liked to write out all my thoughts. You wanted to hear em and you wrote back. The words we tell each other keep me going. They make me realize that people care about what I gotta say and that I should keep sayin it. If it weren’t for you I don’t know where I would be.. Not in highschool and def not making B’s. We need more teachers because my friends didn’t have that. Some are in real bad places now and I know they gotta voice too. We need more teachers to listen to that and to write back and really care about them too. If we don’t get that in my school my boys are gonna get lost in all the stuff around them. To them school is a joke and I wish they coulda had you as a teacher so they coulda seen that its pretty tight when you learn poetry through rap lyrics. One day you told me that Tupac and Biggie knew lots of words and that’s why they were so good at writing rap songs. I thought it was a joke but then the more I listened and paid attention I heard all these words that I didn’t know what they meant. I know what you mean now and I try to learn more words so I can sound like them. Its all about the words Ms C. We need more teachers like you so we can see how school relates to OUR lives and OUR future. We aint seein it in the textbooks. We do see it when you make it real to OUR lives. I know I am not the best student but I care now. I wanna be like you and go to college and all. It sounds pretty cool from the way you talk about it and I never woulda said that before the summer I met you. Thanks ms C and please help get more teachers for us.

We luv ya

J. A. H.