Dear future students,
Welcome! You are now in my classroom, and I am so overjoyed that you are, too. I have had many sleepless nights getting through the piles of planning for this year. This isn’t counting the amount of sleep I lost during my college career to stand at the front of this classroom and say I have made it. I hope you are as excited as I am about being here.
I hope that as your teacher that I will not fail you. As a first year teacher, I will have a lot of new ideas that will not work but some that will. Trust me, I will have a lot of ideas. I will try new ways to incorporate technology into our lessons to make them more interactive and fun, while still keeping the educational core that I hold strongly to. I ask that during these times that I experiment that you cooperate with me. I want to be in your corner. This means that I will stand up for you to ensure that you are getting a quality education. As your teacher, I will encourage you to explore your strengths and weaknesses, your creativity, and critical thinking skills. I want you guys to teach me things as well. For example, teach me how to be a better teacher. Ask me those difficult questions that make me go and do deeper research about a topic to further your learning. After all, it is my first year, and I need to grow and develop into a stronger teacher each day that passes.
I also want you to grow as students and people. As a huge supporter of the arts, I want to incorporate those things into the curriculum. English and theatre go hand-in-hand, and I want to make sure that I am incorporating those two things into our classrooms. May would disagree with me, but we need to raise awareness for the arts and get people involved with them. As a teacher, a simple lesson that I do can change the course of a student’s life. It happens because if my theatre and English teacher had not done that for me, I would not be standing in a classroom, but instead, I would be standing miserably behind a counter at a pharmacy.
I want to help you to see new worlds and be exposed to culture. There is so much out there that needs to be discovered, and I want my students to have the best opportunity out there. So to my students, in my classroom, you are all dreamers, explorers, and world changers. I encourage that you get out of your comfort zones and try new things. Who knows? You may find a hidden talent or solve an unsolved problem. Teachers are there to open new doors for their students, and I for one, want you to go through the door and see what hides behind it. Be open to all the things I do in my classroom because everything that I will do will be to benefit you and your education. I became a teacher so that I could change lives and introduce students to new things, and that is exactly what I will be doing.
Sincerely,
Your future English/Theatre teacher, Mr. Walker
