Students like myself find it difficult to listen to teachers, day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute, which made going to class always dreadful. However, this cycle came to an end when I walked into Mr. Beam’s 7th grade science class. When I walked in, I thought two things. One, this guy seems really chill, and two, this dude must love his plants because there were plants lining the entire room. As each day, hour, and minute, passed, I realized how different Mr. Beam was from so many other teachers. He didn’t yell even if we were loud; he just told us to be calmer, and we all listened because he treated us with respect. He treated us how he wanted to be treated. Mr. Beam is an extremely caring person and teacher and always helped students out, and most important to me, Mr. Beam’s class work was practical and challenging. There wasn’t too much fluff; it was the Goldilocks.

   I am a teenage student, so my friends and I often had discussions about teachers treating their students with the same respect that they would a fellow adult. At the end of every respect discussion we concluded that teachers who treat their students with respect not only get it back, but they also have a more productive learning environment. Mr. Beam truly took this to heart. Mr. Beam treated every student with the respect that he did adults, and this made the entire grade give it back to him. If the class ever got too loud Mr. Beam would calmly tell us to be quiet; he never raised his voice, and we all listened. One particular time I remember is when we were doing the critter lab, and we got carried away with the lab and got too excited and noisy; instead of yelling he simply told us to keep out enthusiasm quieter. A quote from three college professors research study on teacher’s emotion regulation and classroom management states  “Other middle school teachers we interviewed said that they tried to reduce their anger in the classroom because they had learned that yelling did not work or that a loss of temper could hurt their relationships with students--relationships they believed were essential for their effectiveness as teachers.” This quote goes to show that teachers also realize that yelling isn't a solution, and it only creates a rift in the student teacher relationship.

    I have had many kind and caring teachers, but never one like Mr. Beam. Mr. Beam’s door was always open, and he was always willing to talk to a student if they had an issue, but he never made it feel awkward. Students could trust him, and this strengthened the student teacher relationship which resulted in more productive class time. In addition Mr. Beam, always helped his students when he could. For example, if you had sports equipment that you needed for an after school activity, he let you keep it in his room in a locked closet so it was safe. This may not seem like a big deal for most people, but for people like me whose bags are the size of body bags and have close to $1000 worth of equipment, it was a huge relief knowing it’s safe.

   Can you recall that one teacher who gave out worksheet after worksheet? Can you recall the class where you learned nothing except how to fill out paper? Well Mr. Beam was nothing like that. He didn’t just teach science; he lived science. He experienced it, and he wanted us to also. Mr. Beam set up many labs for us to do to keep us engaged in the lesson and what we were learning, and the hands on learning helped us remember. A lab that I will remember for the rest of my life is the critter lab. We learned how to apply genotypes and phenotypes with probability in order to make a critter, much like what happens in the human body. It wasn’t all fun though because he had us take detailed notes so we were 100% ready for our test. He kept us engaged in the class by telling stories related to what we were learning, and the connections helped us understand and remember. If we struggled on a test, we could easily think back to the story to help us remember. Lastly, depending on what we were doing, we would move to a different part of the classroom to increase our productivity by changing where we were learning. 

   Mr. Beam isn’t just an amazing teacher, he is an amazing person, and I believe he was born for the job. He treats all his students with the respect that he would give an adult, he is compassionate and always willing to go above and beyond to help a student out, and his classwork is interesting, practical, and useful. For these reasons I am nominating Mr. Beam for Educator of the Year because nobody else is a teacher like him.