nothing short of wonderful

Testing - finally done. As another year slip-slides past, I try to grab hold of as much time as I can, not only to teach my kids what I know to be most valuable, but to be with them in ways that they will remember long after many of the book lessons have faded from their minds.

Last summer I taught ELO (Extended Learning Opportunity) and so I got to know some of the kids assigned to my class before the real school year started. On the first day of school, one of the girls who had been in my ELO class showed up with her mother, who said, "She prayed to be in your class! It worked!" What to say - "Thank you"? "I prayed for your daughter to be in my class too"? I smiled and said, "We're going to have a great year." In the back of my mind, I thought, here we go again. They think my class is the "easy" class. Some time in the second quarter, the student made me a card that said "Dear Mrs. Cat, I prayed to be in your class because you want to know how I am and you teach me good things." And now, thinking back on that day - and on the countless good days and challenges that my class and I have faced this year - I have the following to say.

Dear Parents,

Thank you for allowing me to teach your children. Some days I spend more time with them than you do, and although it may be a fact of our daily lives, I know this is not the ideal. The most important teachers in a child's life are his parents. As a distant second, I'd like you to know that not a day has gone by this year that I have not counted my blessings.

I would also like you to know that this is not "the easy class." Please don't put your child down by referring to it as such. Our standards and benchmarks are as rigorous as any other fifth-grade classroom across the state of Hawaii. After I spent four years in college filling my head with literature and filling pages with my own rambling thoughts, I spent another three doing graduate work in this, my chosen profession, to teach your children what they need to know. Along the way, my reflections confirmed what I already knew: children need to know way more than what's contained between the two covers of any given textbook, and way more knowledge than that which can be shaken out of a Master's Degree.

And so my class - your children and I - have worked hard to get to this point in the year, facing challenges of many natures every day. Sometimes the challenges are academic. Sometimes they are behavioral. Sometimes they are emotional. We work on these things. We work on math problems, on writing traits, on how to get along with each other, on how to construct an effective paragraph. We do something else that's very important on a daily basis as well: we laugh. Sometimes uproariously. Lots of things make us laugh: discovery, Jeff Kinney, knock-knock jokes, our own silly mistakes. Perhaps all this laughter is what makes my class at times seem like "the easy class," because yes! - for many, learning is made easier when it is made fun.

We've had our ups and we've had our downs. I've discovered just how loud 19 ten- and eleven-year-olds can be, and they've learned just how loud one irritated teacher can be. I've never been a militant person; haven't yet had a class that demanded this kind of personality change from me. Thank you for raising a wonderful kid who, like a river, roars at times, ebbs when necessary, eddies exuberantly, sparkles often, and always flows forth with an energy that amazes me - and makes me so proud to be his teacher.

In closing, I want to thank you again - not just for sharing your pride and joy with me, but in advance, for developing the dreams of your child, whose smile I will miss dearly when the school year is over. Our time in this class has not been easy. But it has been nothing short of wonderful.

Yours truly,

Mrs. Cat