I love to learn. I have always loved to learn. I often feel at home in a classroom, most intrigued by some random lecture my professor is giving, one that puts everyone else to sleep. But let's face it: no matter how much you love to learn, school is no one's favorite place to be. You could want to do nothing but learn for the rest of your life, and some days getting up and going to class would still feel like an unnecessary and exhausting grind.

I used to love school when I was little. After a certain age though, that pattern stopped. The first time I remember counting down the days to a break was in fourth grade, when I started being bullied. I remember very clearly one afternoon saying to my mother "this many days until I don't have to be around those people anymore." Fourth grade, nine years old, was the first time I genuinely wanted to stay in bed rather than get up and go learn.

As the years went on, there was always something to keep me longing for home rather than the classroom. Whether that be bullying from my classmates, subjects that didn't interest me or just exhaustion from staying up late doing homework, more often than not I found myself longing for my bed more than knowledge. However, no matter how old I got, there was always one constant that got me through it all, one thing that was always there to make me smile on even the most unbearable days: my teachers.

I always knew that my teachers meant a lot to me, that I had special relationships with them. At the end of my senior year I wrote most every teacher I'd ever had a long thank you note. My yearbook was filled with more messages from faculty than students. But it was when I got to college that I realized just how much I admired them.

When I got to college, it didn't take very long for me to notice that I didn't have the kinds of connections with my professors that I did with my teachers. How could I? College is a completely different environment, and I was only seeing these people two times a week rather than five. But having a lack of those special relationships in college really showed me just how much my teachers had always brightened my days.

Growing up, I always got to fantasize about superheroes. Whether it be reading about Harry Potter, or watching fairies battle evil in my favorite Saturday morning cartoon, the stories I engaged in, and the stories I still engage in, always involved someone saving the day. In school I was taught to look out for the real life heroes: parents, older siblings, police officers, mail carriers. Among all the talk of everyday heroes though, there was one group of people who never got mentioned, and they were the people who I later realized were the heroes from my stories come to life: teachers.

My teachers were always there for me from a very young age, there to be my personal heroes in very small ways. There was my second and third grade teacher, who when I won nail-polish out of the prize box, sat at free time with me and painted my nails. There was my fourth grade teacher who played the board-game with me that I created, because I had no friends to do it with. My sixth grade teacher spent Monday mornings talking to me about my weekend because I had no one else to tell. My eighth grade English teacher handed out candy and played games with us before every school break. My 11th grade math teacher handed out "awards" at the end of the year all about who each of her students were. My AP Government teacher talked with me about our favorite TV show. My drama and music teachers spent countless rehearsals drying my tears.

I've always been very different, and it's caused me to be outcast, but my teachers always smiled at me and engaged me in conversations no one else wanted to have. They let me know, without saying the words at all, that who I was was lovable and beautiful. I think it's very well possible that they are the reason that, despite nearly a decade of being bullied, I never lost my sense of self-love.

Teachers were my superheroes. Superheroes rescue people. My teachers rescued me from bullies when I was young. They rescued me from boredom when I got older, doing their best to make every class as exciting as possible. They rescued my spirit, and kept my love of learning alive when school became a burden rather than a passion. They rescued me from everything. So many times my most exciting classes, my favorite teachers, were my reason for getting up in the morning.

I could recount for you every moment of a time a teacher helped me, but it would take hours. What I can say to sum it all up is that for all my years of education my teachers were more than just educators. They were superheroes, and friends in a way, and confidantes, and rocks, and parental figures.

So this is a thank you to all the great teachers out there: the superheroes the world forgets. You spend your lives giving children the gift of knowledge, expanding their minds and helping them grow. But you do more than that. I always thought people became teachers because they loved the subject they were teaching. But then I grew up and I looked back, and I realized what it means to be a teacher.

You don't just teach. You make kids smile. You love each and every student unconditionally. Your love is so deep and so important, because there are so many kids don't get love anywhere else. You make it your life's work to make sure that every child has an opportunity to experience being met with pride. You make sure that even the loneliest of kids have some kind of happy memory to take away from their school years. It's in the smiley faces and messages of encouragement on top of a graded test. It's in the games played and movies watched in the last week before a break, the only reason it was possible to make it through those final exhausting days. One of the most important lessons I learned from my teachers is that teachers change people's lives.

You don't get recognized enough for the things you do. So many people try to write you off as nothing more than someone standing at the front of a room reading notes, but you are so much more than that. There's a reason that nearly every person in this world can name you at least one teacher who changed their life. Everybody, no matter who you are, has a favorite teacher that they speak of warmly for the rest of their lives. You change people's lives. You change the world.

So thank you for everything. Personally I can say, and I think a lot of people would agree with me, that you are my superheros. Better than Superman, or Wonder Woman or Captain America or Harry Potter...you are the greatest superheroes I have ever known.