At the end of school, last year, I sat at my empty desk. I’d packed up all my teaching gear, collected over the last fifteen years and I’d hauled the boxes out to my pick-up: mostly really good books, some tape and sticky notes, scissors and my green stapler, three Pez dispensers and some Zots, and the pictures I always kept on my desk. Moving full-on into my life as an online teacher, I wanted to be sure these supplies found their way to a teacher, maybe just starting out, who could use them. They did.

I really dislike the end of the school year. I hate the thought that my students are flung into

Pixabay.com

summer without a second glance, and I miss them and worry about them and continue to pray for them. This last year was particularly difficult as I knew I wouldn’t be coming back, so I wouldn’t see them in the halls to ask how they were doing or offer help to them with their academic or personal struggles, or just give them a hard time about not saying hi to me in the hall. So I sat at my empty desk and wondered what I could do.

I found blank paper. And I wrote. I know, big surprise there. I wrote a letter to each of them and told them about the person I had gotten to know in them. I said I believed in them and knew that, even though they might have bad days, that they would succeed. I wrote that I expected them to do their best next

Pixabay.com

year in school and that they should make good decisions over summer. Sealing each one in an envelope, I took them to my principal and ask that he please deliver them to each kid after school started in the fall. He promised that he would, and I left believing that he would.

One of those kids sent me a Snapchat message just a couple of days ago, “Mrs. G, I got your letter and I promise to try.” And another sent me a Snap to let me know that they were working on prepositions and remembered what I’d taught them last year! Make a teacher’s day; it’s the easiest thing in the world to do.