Mentor

I've been in a letter writing mood lately. I've written letters to Sundays and Mondays. I'm planning letters to Daylight Savings Time, St. Patrick's Day, and Easter. 

But this week and next, my school is taking part in "Look for the Good", where we practice expressing and sharing gratitude for the things and people we have in our lives.
One of the ways that we do that is through writing "You Matter" letters to important people in our lives and telling them why they matter to us, and even reading them out loud to the person if possible.
In my silent car ride this morning (it's a new thing I'm trying and I absolutely LOVE it!), I was thinking about the You Matter letter and who I was going to write one to. It isn't included that teachers or staff write them, but I thought, why not?

Here's mine:

Dear Bob, 
Remember me? I was your student teacher way back in 2005 - thirteen years ago (holy cow!). My school is currently participating in a 'Look for the Good' campaign, where we focus on gratitude for the things and people we have in our lives. One part of that is to write letters to people who matter to us in order to express our gratitude. I chose to write to you. 

You see, I don't think I ever wrote you a letter after I graduated and we parted ways. I may have, but it isn't coming to mind, and I have way more to say now than I ever could have then. 

Thank you. 

Those words seem simple, but it is amazing to me how every day I can attribute something I say or something I do or something I think to our time together in your classroom.

I spent a year and a half in your classroom, which is a year longer than most people spend doing their student teaching. But being paired together my junior year was so successful, and we both felt that we had plenty to learn from each other, that I wrote a letter to my student teaching supervisor requesting to be placed in your classroom for student teaching. Your school wasn't one of the chosen schools, and I would have been the only one there, but I advocated for myself and what I felt I needed to learn the most. Through this, I learned to ask for what I needed to grow the most. And boy, has that paid off. I've attended trainings and been given opportunities simply because I've known what I needed to learn and I've asked for the opportunity to learn it.

In your classroom, we had students from every walk of life. Students whose families had money and privilege and opportunity, and students whose families had none of those things. Students who spoke two languages and translated for their parents at conferences. Students whose life history would make a Lifetime movie seem tame. Through this, I learned to see every student for the whole of who they are. What a lesson to learn so early on. Every year, I have had one or more of those types of students, the ones who you need to get to know on a personal level so they trust you before you can ever try to teach them.

There was so much FUN to be had in your classroom. You were forever building furniture to house things, or playing games with the kids at recess - and do you remember the multimedia video project we did where kids painted and made sound effects and wrote scripts? We made math, and reading, and writing FUN - but it was all centered on what we wanted them to learn. I learned from you that having fun was one thing, but engaging kids in their learning was a whole other thing. Through this, I learned that every classroom should have a little bit of fun. Fun has come up a lot lately, with standards and assessments and testing and parents and conferences and report cards and and and. I always reach back to the interactive read alouds, our morning messages, our project based learning, and our connections with the kids to show that yes, fun is fun, but learning can be fun too. And I don't think many students would disagree with that.

And while your students had fun, they also took care of their classroom. They knew the classroom was theirs, and they were part of deciding what happened. We had class meetings when things went poorly - and when they went well. We talked about hard things with them. We let them make decisions and supported them, helping them to be successful, giving them pep talks when things went poorly. We greeted them at the door every day. We said goodbye to them every afternoon. We expected them to care for their space, and they did. Through this, I learned students deserve opportunities to be independent and make mistakes. I channeled this for sure when I was faced with fourth grade parents who wanted to do their child's homework with them every night to make sure it was right. Or other teachers who questioned time taken away from "learning" for class meetings. Or students who wanted to be told what to do and how to do it. 

There are so many more examples I could give, but I think you get the picture. I'm in a role now where I am not using these lessons with students of my own, but with teachers who are challenged with twenty students who all need different things. I could not be in the position that I am in today without your support and guidance in all of these things.

So thank you. Thank you for teaching me to advocate for myself. To see students as whole people, not just their schoolwork. To have fun everyday. To push for independence and ownership.

I am lucky and grateful to have had your guidance and collegiality for so much time.

Ashley