to school in South Norfolk I play lots
of sports in school and outside of
school and for my GCSE options I chose
through tech p geography and French my
generation the generation of YouTube and
social media is surrounded by
inspiration we don’t need to be told who
to be like or who to be inspired by we
create our own inspirational heroes by
watching them liking them and sharing
them so how can schools compete with
that how can teachers inspire a
generation that carry their own
inspiration around in their pockets what
is it like to be in a high school in
2017 is there enough inspiration inside
the classroom I decided to do some
research amongst my friends and my
teachers to find out who they’re
inspired by where the teachers thought
their students left the lessons inspired
and whether students found their lessons
inspiring the list of people my friends
were inspired by is buried they talked
about people who were down to earth and
persevere despite hardship and some even
talked about teachers teachers who made
it clear to them they believed in them
during one of my classes at school I
asked the students whether they thought
their lessons were inspiring only three
out of a class of 30 said yes I realized
the fact i was asking them in front of
each other might have made a difference
to their answers so our students
individually when I did ask them
individually they talked about lessons
that were inspiring unless as that
weren’t starting with a negative we
don’t like it when a teacher walks into
the classroom and size it gives the
impression they don’t want to be there
and that makes doesn’t want to be there
either we don’t like it when they ignore
us for me ask for help and move on to
quickly leaving us confused while I was
planning this um I heard a news report
on the radio on the work pressures on
teachers in 2017 and I wondered if this
is the reason they didn’t feel like
they’re inspiring some of their student
did they just not have time to think
about it but when I asked teachers if
they did think this is that this is the
matter they didn’t think it did and they
thought they still had enough time to
plan their lessons in enough depth I
asked my fellow students about testing
did they think testing effective their
learning they all thought testing was a
good idea and that helped them to know
where they were in terms of education
and how much they needed to work towards
to achieve their goals it’s interesting
how testing is often seen as a bad thing
by parents and yet students at my school
seemed to like it after planning all of
this another question popped into my
head why do we need inspiration in these
lessons but that’s for another time I
started this with a question is there
enough inspiration inside the classroom
in conclusion we can never be sure if
there’s enough sometimes there is and
sometimes there isn’t my generation is
surrounded by inspiration outside of the
classroom and we understand that a
teacher’s job is much more complicated
than just inspiring the students they
teach after doing this research I have
realized that inspiration is often an
individual thing and it’s about what we
choose to put out put into them and what
we choose to take out because it takes a
willingness to get inspired to be
inspired thank [Applause]