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The end of the school year is a bittersweet time for teachers. It’s satisfying to bring to an end a year of hard work. That engenders a feeling of accomplishment, of completion. But it’s always sad, because very soon, our classes will meet for the final time. Each class with its unique personality, comprised of the unique personalities of each of you, will die, never to be reborn.

That understanding always leaves me with a sense of loss. Soon, I’ll rise in the morning and realize I can no longer look forward to seeing each of you every day. It’s like losing an old, trusted, beloved friend, many times over.

Does this surprise you? You didn’t know I felt that way about you? I do, and so do all dedicated teachers.

Teaching is not about the money. It’s about being a part of something bigger than oneself, something with the potential to change lives, to build a better future. It’s about giving of yourself that others might become more than they are, that they might build bigger, better, more capable brains. It’s about helping my students become smart, thoughtful, productive citizens, people who produce, who contribute to America’s future rather than taking from those that do.

Most of all, it’s about the sheer wonder of having a hand in your growth. I don’t mean physical growth—though that’s always amazing and often, surprising—but the intellectual and emotional growth the study of literature and writing makes possible.

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I delight in each shy, quiet girl who becomes confident and outgoing, more woman than girl. I take great pleasure in each rambunctious boy that discovers that reading might not be so bad after all, and that he might even like poetry. I glory when students understand America’s Founders really were important, not just to America, but to Mankind.

By the way guys, I understand you can’t really admit that out loud. As you become more man than boy that will get easier, but for now, it will be our secret. And I smile with satisfaction at each student who remembers that “there is a tide,” means to take advantage of one’s opportunities. It’s always good to carry a little Shakespeare with us.

All year I worried that I was not exposing you to enough great literature. I worried that I was not giving you sufficient opportunity to write, and that I was not writing back to you with sufficient understanding and insight, or as often as I should. I worried that I wasn’t adequate to the task with which your parents entrusted me: providing the best educational opportunity I could manage. I seem to have less time to do that every year, but I never stop trying.

As I look back on this year, at missed opportunities, and at what might have been, I see your faces, and I smile, because I know you’re going to be OK.

Do you know what great kids you are? Every day I read about the horrors of kids in schools elsewhere in the nation, and then I look at you as we start each class. You’re smart, polite, caring, and good to each other, and of course, to me. I’m proud of you; we all are, not just for your academic accomplishments, but for who you are, for your everyday tender mercies.

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As I’ve told you from our first day together, school is about more than the materials we study. You maintained portfolios to get into the habit of dealing with small details, because life is mostly about getting small things right. You were required to learn to listen and to be quiet at the appropriate times because that too is what life is about. You studied vocabulary because words are thoughts made real, and you needed to become more than you were at the beginning of the year. Benjamin Franklin was right: you shouldn’t squander time, because that’s what life is made of.

You remember that daily saying, don’t you? We did daily sayings because you needed to learn to think, to see the important lessons in the small things of life, because that’s where most of them are waiting to be found.

Everything we did, from “Name That Tune” on Fridays, to “Talk Like A Pirate Day,” to every writing assignment, had a purpose: to help you build skills, to help you become a more effective and competent human being. We studied science fiction because it expands your possibilities; it helps you think more broadly. Someday, you’ll understand why we did some assignments you didn’t particularly appreciate at the time. You may not, but you’ll be better for the experience anyway. That’s because part of what we did was to stress you, to make you think, to work and to accomplish new things, paragraph by paragraph, essay by essay. That’s how we grow, become adults, become more than we were on the first day we entered a classroom, wondering what kind of lunatic this English teacher would turn out to be.

When I taught earnest young men and women to be police officers, I used to tell them about the seven magic words: “please, thank you,” and “you are under arrest.” You don’t need the last four magic words, at least not right now, but we emphasized the first three because being polite is also what life is about. Some of you even learned that it’s possible to survive for 50 minutes at a time without manipulating a cell phone or going into texting withdrawal.

Perhaps the most important thing you learned is the necessity of paying attention, a lesson many of you only began in earnest this year, and if you’re wise, will work toward the rest of your life. Did you hear what I just said? Ha ha! That’s a little English teacher joke!

You’ll have other teachers during your final year of high school, and I know many of you won’t stop by to say hello. I understand. It’s time for you to move on. That too is a part of life. You’ve learned what you can from me and it’s time to learn from others. If I did it right, you’ll be better able to learn from them. You’ll be as important to them as you are to me, but my classroom door is always open to you.

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Before I close this final lesson, a few questions (you could see that coming, couldn’t you?): Did you pay attention as often and as fully as you should? Did you take full advantage of your learning opportunities? Were you as kind and helpful to others as you could and should have been? Did you decide, like me, to approach each day happy and smiling? That’s a conscious choice, you know, a choice over which you have absolute control. Your success in this class depended upon it; so will your success in life (did you notice how I used that semicolon?).

It has been an honor and pleasure to be your teacher this year.

Thanks for reading this final assignment, and for being such great kids. I’ll miss you more than you know.

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