Dear Previously Loathed Teacher,

I spent two years listening to people complain about you and warn me against taking classes with you, but I signed my soul over to you anyway. You then haunted my dreams and most of my waking hours.

On that first day, and on many of the days following it, you terrified me. You were demanding, challenging, exasperated and strict. You accepted nothing less than the best, and I could never seem to give you that. I spent hours upon hours studying and perfecting my assignments, sacrificing sleep and joy in a desperate attempt to prove that I knew what I was doing. Still, when you handed my papers back, they were covered in harsh red pen marks. It seemed like no matter how hard I tried, my efforts were never enough for you; my word choice was colloquial, my analysis was inadequate, my thesis was flawed and I couldn’t formulate a complete theme if my life depended on it. I received my first A- two and a half months into your class, and I wouldn’t see another for over a year. I tried to avoid having to ask you too many questions at once or talking to you at all. I spent 45 minutes in your class every day frantically taking notes in an attempt to avoid making eye contact with you and being forced to risk answering a question incorrectly. Outside of class, I referred to you as the “dragon lady," and when walking to your classroom on the top floor of the building, I told my friends that I was “ascending to hell”.

By the time we neared the end of my high school career, I had given up trying to please you. I started making as many pop culture references in my essays as possible, until you finally complemented my ability to draw parallels between "The Hunger Games" and our “feminism in literature” unit. I began noticing the subtle encouragement you gave us as we worried over colleges, and on the morning of the AP test, you gave us all breakfast and made sure we took snacks for the break. Finally, on the last day of class, I saw tears in your eyes as you bid us good bye and good luck.

That floored me; I finally realized that you genuinely cared about my classmates and me and that you might even be proud of us. Then it hit me; it hit me harder than any of your essay questions ever had. You hugged us all goodbye at graduation and I held back tears. I had spent two years refusing to let you make me cry. I wasn’t going to break that streak then, even if they were no longer tears of distress. Those two years were a struggle (in the most mild of terms), but you had taught me so much more than how to formulate a thesis; you taught me to be a better writer, a better student, and a better person than I would have ever been without you. And I never even realized it.

Three months later, I started college, and I was once again terrified. But I discovered an inexplicable confidence in myself, a stubborn belief that whatever my new professors threw at me, I could and would survive. That confidence, I know, only exists because of you. You enhanced my work, my thought processes and my mind in ways that I never would have discovered with anyone else, let alone on my own. You made me stronger, more accepting of criticism, and more determined than ever. Now I am armed with the knowledge that you believe in me and that is all I need.

Sincerely,

Your Eternally Grateful Student

P.S: I’m sorry for calling you the “dragon lady."