First and foremost, thank you for choosing to see the best in me; even though high school was four years where I was not always the best version of myself. Anyone who has to deal with me before 8 a.m. deserves an award.

Without your open mind and patience, who knows how I would have turned out.

There is a reason why you were my favorite high school teacher and that is because you are the person who made me look forward to school (as much as any teenager can look forward to it).

Any student can express their favored class, and more often than not that is a reflection on the teacher’s method of teaching. Once again, thank you. Thank you for being a teacher who recognized that every student does not learn the same and that does not make one type of student smarter than the other.

Thank you for taking the time to learn with us. Your efforts to learn about your students and what works for each of them, made everyone feel welcome in your classroom.

Even though I would not have said it back in high school, thanks for knowing when to crack down on me. Sometimes I needed a little push (or a big push) to get work done, and every time, you were right there to give it to me.

Thanks for being the teacher who knew when it was time to stop being so serious. Learning from games, skits, and art projects taught us the same material from the textbook but it got our creative minds flowing.

When it came to high school drama I’ll be the first to say I had my fair share. You were willing to listen and offer whatever advice you could, even though I’m 90% sure that is not in your job description. Thanks for recognizing that a portion of how students perform academically is related to their social life in school. It’s not easy being 16 years old- those halls and lockers are all we know, and you understood that.

As I said, high school drama can really bring a person down when it’s your whole life. I mean, you spend 6 hours a day, five days a week, 180 days a year in that building with those people. Sometimes it’s hard to shake a bad day in high school. Thanks for recognizing when my work was maybe not the best it could be. Also, thanks for giving me a second opportunity when it made sense.

Thanks for making it hard to say goodbye to you when I graduated. If someone had told me when I was a freshman that I would cry saying goodbye to a teacher, I would have told them they were out of their mind. You’ve set the bar high for all my teachers past, present, and future. Every learning experience here on out will be filtered through the standard you’ve given me.

Since there is no real award for dealing with high school students before 8 A.M. this letter will have to do.

Thank you.