To the teacher that killed my love for art,
I should start off this letter by saying, you didn’t kill my love for art. You just killed my passion. Honestly, I don’t know which is worse. I sat in your class for two and a half years, and the first year and a half was amazing, I kept thinking of you as a sort of God in your preferred medium. While you will remain an amazing artist and hilarious teacher, I want you to know this.
Your approval means nothing to me anymore, and I will no longer seek your opinion.
You were an amazing fundamentals teacher, and I’m so glad you helped me find a niche for the arts. However, when I hear fellow classmates getting excited to take your more advanced classes I cringe. It’s hard for me to not sound completely negative when I said your classes became emotionally draining. I never thought the arts would do that the way they did over the last year. I don’t know if it was your need to always tear down my work because “you thought I could do better” (constructive criticism is one thing my friend, this was not that) or you constantly pushing me to be the artist I never wanted to be.
Either way, I know now that I am more.
I am more than the student you made me out to be.
I am more than the last minute projects I did to impress you.
I am more than the words you said.
I’m more than the classes you teach.
I’m going to go on to college and I won’t look back, you and your class will be a minor setback. I will not come back to visit and see how your students are because there will be a student just like me in there and that scares me. I just hope they are stronger than I was.
I hope that they will have the confidence to stand up to you and tell you that you are in fact wrong.
The arts were never about being like you, sir.
They are about being yourself and you caused me to lose sight of that.
You never cared about my well being outside of getting my work in for competitions.
Honestly, you were the worst teacher I had in my four years of high school for the simple reason that my other teachers at least cared about my well being as a person.
However, sir, that's okay.
See ya on the flipside
Sincerely,
The student you tried to ruin
P.S. -- You didn't succeed.
