Education & Chocolate Cake

Recently, I was asked "In your opinion, what is the most important ingredient to the learning formula? Is it the teacher, technology, class size, the parents....?"

Here's my answer...
There is no "most important ingredient". If I wanted to bake a delicious chocolate cake, then I would have to mix together cocoa powder, flour, eggs, baking soda, and much more. I couldn't pick the most important ingredient from my chocolate cake because without any one of them, my cake wouldn't be a cake. I must have the eggs, flour, and baking soda to create the cake but I must also have the cocoa powder to make it a chocolate one. All of the ingredients depend on one another to create the wonderful finished product. The same goes for education. The teacher is extremely important because  without the teacher, there would be no passion, encouragement, or heart. Without the teacher the basis of education is gone. But students are equally important... without students who are willing to learn and to subject their mind to a day of dedication, education would be extinct. And then come the factors who are equally important such as technology, class size, environment, rules, and motives. These factors are just as important because they determine the type of education. Without these factors, education could be going in one ear of a student and out the other. These methods and teaching techniques help education hold it's form just as a pan would do for my chocolate cake.

The key to education is balance. One must balance all of the factors to ensure that learning is taking place. Learning of subject matter such as math and english and the learning of life lessons. That is why education is so challenging. So many aspects are being demanded at once. But what makes education so challenging is exactly what makes it so rewarding.

To the teachers:
Don't give up. Teaching is grueling. Teaching is tiring. Teaching is life changing.
You are pressured, unappreciated, and sometimes over looked... but don't forget that you are loved!
You are making a significant difference in many, and that is why all that is demanded is so worth it. Baking a cake isn't always fun, but in the end it's worth it.

If this got you thinking, click here to watch a video that talks more about an educational revolution.