At any given moment from this moment now to the one where you retire, I’ll always be tempted to walk into your classroom, sit down at my old desk and demand that you teach me again. You’ll look at me and probably laugh. “I mean it, I’m not done learning” I’ll say.
That statement will be true, for the rest of my life that statement will always be true. But when I go back to visit you, it will have a different meaning. It’ll mean that I need you to teach me something else. You didn’t just teach me what I needed to pass your class, you taught me life lessons that have helped to get me to the present version of me. So, when I tell you to teach me again it’ll be because I’m lost and I’m hoping that you’ll still know me well enough to say exactly what I need to hear.
Because you’ve always known exactly what I needed to hear. All the times I would cry in your classroom because I felt like my life was falling apart, you would comfort me. All the times I escaped to your classroom because it was the only relief in the prison of our school, you would tell me stories and jokes filled with sarcasm to make me laugh. When I wondered into your room because I was feeling lost, you would tell me stories about your life and try to show me that sometimes feeling lost isn’t a bad thing and you would give me hope again.
You’ve installed into me a deep love for your subject, through all the lessons plans you carefully put together and all the years of schooling that you went through. You made your subject become a source of comfort and familiarity for me so when I ask you to teach me again maybe you just need to remind me of some of the facts you told me when you still gave me grades. Maybe it’ll remind me that I’m not a failure because under your guidance I learned so much and achieved high marks. When you were my teacher I never felt like a failure for very long. Somedays I even felt like I could conquer the world. You’ve always had that impact on me.
So, when I wander back into your classroom and sit down at my old desk and ask you to teach me again. I pray that you will, because you have always been my favorite teacher and I still have so much left to learn from you.
