Welcome back everyone!

It was about time that I made my last “love letter to my ___ teachers” (for now). In case you’re new to my blog, I’ve also written posts similar to this one towards my middle school and current high school teachers, so I recommend checking those out if you haven’t already. My blog has a lot of content relating to my schooling experiences and my love for learning (I mean, the title is “My High School Adventures”), so it’s natural for me to pay tribute to the people who have gotten me this far. In elementary school, high schoolers seemed so old, yet here I am, still shocked how fast time has gone.

For a little background, I switched schools going into fifth grade; I had been commuting to a highly-ranked school about 30 minutes away, when I lived near a perfectly good school. I had a rough fourth-grade year with my teacher leaving halfway through the school year, and it was time for a change. It put me on a completely path, and I would not have gone to the wonderful middle school or high school that I’m at now if I hadn’t made that change.

If I could address all of my wonderful elementary school teachers in one letter, I would say this:

Thank you so much for introducing me to new things and pushing me to be better, even as a young child. A special thank you to those who allowed me to pursue the things I loved, by moving me up in reading level and letting me read “the big kid books.” Even though I was EXTREMELY shy and quiet, I definitely appreciated everything you did for me. I honestly wasn’t that good of a kid- I wasn’t a troublemaker because I was so intimidated by you guys, but I know I didn’t have the best habits. Thank you so much for reprimanding me and correcting my ways. It seemed harsh at the time, but it helped me so much in the long run and I understand why you did what you did.

Honestly, I don’t know how you do it. Dealing with twenty to forty needy, crazy little kids everyday and trying to teach them multiple things while doing it is more challenging than I can imagine. I look back on the version of myself you had to deal with and cringe. Thank you for taking on such an important role in molding kids during a formative time in their lives, and doing your best to make it fun. We may not have realized how fun it actually was until moving on to the harder parts of our schooling, but I appreciate it so much now.

Thank you for encouraging us to make new friends. I miss that feeling of actually getting to know each person in your class and having a little family by the end of the year- sure, it’s not always the happiest family, but that sense of community taught me a lot about what friends I wanted to seek in middle school and high school. Thank you for giving me the building blocks and life lessons that I’m still building off of today. I’ve only realized it recently, but a lot of the things I’ve learned I actually started learning from you. Thank you for being kind, encouraging, and overall welcoming spirits that made me more comfortable with getting close to my teachers as the years went on.

Thank you for being people that would check up on me and notice when I needed a motivation boost. Thank you for teaching me how to write!! As silly as it sounds, I actually do think the writing I did in elementary school set me up on the path to do well in writing in middle school, which put me on the path to do well in writing now. Thank you for being you, and well, thank you for teaching me. I know a lot of time has gone by already- you’ve had many, many more classes with new faces and mine has probably disappeared from your memory, but I will remember the years I spent in each of your classes.

Remember to thank your teachers and tell them how much you appreciate them. I hope you have been lucky enough to have at least some teachers you love or have enjoyed learning from- those are the ones that deserve a world of praise 🙂

Brooke