To My Favorite Teachers (and Some of My Overall Favorite People),

First off, I want you all to know how much you truly mean to me. In three short weeks I head back to Delaware to start my sophomore year of college, and I want you all to know that you are a big part of how I’ve gotten this far. I can’t even begin to express my gratitude towards you guys. In the two years I got to attend high school overseas, you guys managed to make such an impact on my life. I hope you all know that a simple “thank you” is a huge understatement for the things you’ve shown me, taught me, and done for me.

This may sound dorky, but first off, thank you for the lessons you’ve taught me. Thank you for instilling in me the knowledge to pass my AP exams with flying colors. I appreciate everything I’ve learned in your classrooms. The things I remember most from high school aren’t the distance formula or how to use moles in chem, but rather the random things like how I should always refer to "Plato’s Allegory of the Cave" as "the Theory of Forms" -- especially if I want to sound mature and impress boys at fancy dinner parties.

Thank you for getting sidetracked and telling our classes stories about you guys growing up. In the hustle and bustle of a hectic school year, kids often forget that their teachers were also just teens once upon a time. Thank you for telling us the story about how your first kiss landed you a trip to the emergency room, or how your college friends got mad at you on halloween because you had a heart attack earlier that night and didn’t feel like driving them to a party.

Thank you for giving me a classroom that was more than just walls and a whiteboard. Thank you for using your classrooms to give me some of my best friends (Hey, Nader, Audrey, Dumsi and Charlie!). Thank you for turning those rooms into safe places: places where I could eat lunch on a bad day, or hang out with you during your prep period. Thank you for letting me hide out in those classrooms on days when I wanted to avoid responsibilities and finally, thank you for letting me return to your classrooms this year even though they were 7,000 miles away from me.

Thank you for picking me up when my heart was in a million pieces. Thank you for offering me a snickers bar instead of an exam on agriculture patterns because you knew in that moment that I needed the candy bar more. Thank you for letting me make up that agriculture test the next day. Thank you for threatening to hurt any boys who broke my heart. Thank you for trusting me with parts I didn’t think I was capable of playing in band, and working with me until I perfected them to a tee. Thank you for believing that I could carry the band with challenging xylophone parts, and thank you for never giving up on me. Thank you all for never giving up on me. Thank you for telling my mother last month that you can’t imagine me being anyone other than someone’s favorite teacher someday.

I hope you all know by now that you guys are more than just teachers. Not only are you some of the most influential people in my life, but you’re also the kind who will stay up on a school night editing papers for your former students when you yourself have your own paper to write for grad school. You’re the kind of teachers who email your students your favorite playlists when you overhear that they just went through an awful breakup. You’re the type of instructors who pull up their old class rosters from junior year AP Lang and send out emails offering advice about college to your old freshman college babies. You’re the type of teachers who genuinely care about your students. Someday I hope that I can be half the teacher that you all are and that I will change lives in the same way you’ve all changed mine. Thank you all so much -- I truly mean it.

Love,

One of Your Biggest Fans