Dear Teacher: It's Almost Summer But Before We Go...
Dear Teacher,
It’s almost summer. This long slog through the school year is nearly over for both of us. Although we don’t know each other that well, I feel as if we’ve been silent compatriots. As we near the end, I find myself wanting to reach across your desk and hug the hell out of you in solidarity.
Like veterans who drag each other out of the war torn trenches of Hollywood action films, sobbing with relief. We made it!
I’m sure you’re dreaming about margaritas and a lounge chair somewhere. And damn, I hope you get that. You’ve earned it. I’m thirsty for a different kind of relief. The extra hour of sleep that summer brings. I know it doesn’t seem like much, but that hour is going to transform my life. No lunches to pack, no grumbling kids to hassle into taking exactly two bites of breakfast, no yelling, mad dash to the car. Yes, my children are going to be home. And they’ll be a gigantic pain in my ass instead of yours for the next three months. For now, I’m cool with that. Because sleep.
But before we go, there’s this whole teacher appreciation thing. Pinterest is full of cutesy ideas of what crafters think you’d like. Flower pots emblazoned with “Look how much I’ve grown!” or gift cards from Starbucks- “Thanks a latte!” Yeah. So I’ve been looking for a while and I just can’t stomach any of those options this year. I’m having an existential gifting dilemma. How do I give something that’ll mean even a fraction of what you’ve given my son this year?
What gift card will communicate that you are the teacher who changed my son’s life?
I can’t even begin to express my gratitude for the momentous shift you’ve brought to the landscape of his education. My son is a bright child who read at four and skipped kindergarten. I’m a former teacher who has always challenged him academically. But I could never teach him to love school. For him, school was a place filled with anxiety. For the first two years, he was so uncomfortable calling attention to himself in class that he’d pee his pants rather than ask to go to the bathroom. He’s had teachers who assigned hours of homework, set timers during tasks to simulate high stakes testing, ripped up classmate’s papers in front of the class, and publicly ridiculed children. Up until this year, if you asked my son what his favorite subject was in school, he’d say lunch and recess.
This devastated me because my own relationship with education had been very different. In elementary school there was Ms. Sweeney, my fourth grade teacher. A red haired, tall, willowy beauty who dated a San Diego padre player and held every ounce of adoration my little heart was capable of. I worshiped her gentle voice and her kind encouragement. When I struggled with friends, she’d listen quietly and offer advice. When I was hesitant to take the risk, she talked me into trying out for the track team. And then we moved. I went through some tough years during middle school. By the time I got to high school, I was floundering. And then I got Mr. Eisenstadter my freshman year. He was my high school English teacher, short and gray haired, who wore a jacket that looked as if he’d stolen it off a Union soldier during the Civil War. A former actor, he made Shakespeare come alive. Stalking the aisles with such passion that it was impossible not to be carried away on the tide of his enthusiasm. When my career in journalism stalled, I became a teacher myself and it was because of him.
This larger than life man had people my high school classroom with literary characters that felt as intimate as real friends.
Whenever the world overwhelmed me, I could always find comfort between the covers of a book.
But my son had never experienced the powerful influence of an extraordinary teacher. He hadn’t had his Ms. Sweeney. Until you. I noticed the difference almost right away. When he got home the first day, my son's eyes were wide as saucers and he exclaimed-
“Guess what?!”
“What?”
“I got the nicest teacher in the fifth grade!”
He felt so lucky, as if he had won the lottery. And I suppose in a way he did. About a month after school started, I found my ten-year-old son up early and dressed before I was even awake. I stumbled sleepy eyed into the kitchen looking for coffee and asked why he was up at such a god forsaken hour.
“I’m just excited to go to school, Mom. I can’t wait to see what we’re going to do today.”
I was speechless. I looked more closely at the blog updates you were posting and the website after that. And I saw something important. In the photos you took every week, kids were laughing and lounging on the floor, reading books and playing games. It struck me how comfortable they were, with each other and the camera. By this age they begin to be shy, tucking heads and avoiding the lens.
My son and his classmates grinned and extended themselves wholeheartedly, glowing with unabashed welcome. It was obvious from their open faces and genuine affection that whoever was on the other end of that camera had earned their trust.
And it’s not just that you have created a place where my son feels welcome and comfortable. You’ve also designed ways to expand the curriculum and challenged our kid’s curiosity. This year he learned hundreds of Latin roots and read forty books. My son participated in science fairs and figured out basic coding. He even began to take steps towards deciphering algebraic equations. And yet somehow, you still managed to fit in extra recess on sunny days and let the kids make copious amounts of origami. When I come for conferences you have thick stacks of test results that show scores jumping off the charts, and plenty of recommendations for what we can do to challenge our student. And yet you always take a moment to honor his articulate, clever humor and his love of writing and drawing comics.
As if he is a whole person and not the sum of his academic achievements.
I remember once a few months ago, my son was late coming out when the bell rang and I went into the classroom to investigate. I lurked outside the doorway and watched him. My son and his friends were talking animatedly, goofing around, and making some halfhearted attempts to pack up their desks. I had been there for exactly point five seconds and I was already annoyed with their obnoxious, chattering chaos. You were standing there, at the end of what surely must have been a very long day, holding a Diet Coke and gazing at them with affection. You didn’t rush those kids or act impatient. You just leaned against your desk calmly and when you saw me standing there, you smiled and gave me a wink. As if we were sharing a secret.
And we do share something. We hold the well-being of a child in our hands every day, suspended between the two of us. You take his days and I take his nights. And we try our best to help him be a brilliant, capable human.
But you, teacher, deserve more than my thanks for these last 195 days. I owe you a debt I can never repay. You have taught my son to love learning, to see school as a safe place where there is room for him to be himself. This is his last year in elementary school. He’ll journey on next year to middle school, where we’ll both face our fears about the cruelty of peers and a school system that doesn’t always allow individuality to flourish.