To My Students


Your last official day of English class is this week.  I hope by the time you´re reading this, we haven’t seen each other for the last time, but for some of us, maybe we have.  For a lot of you, you’ll probably see me out running once or twice more.  Or maybe you’ll be at one of the graduation ceremonies coming up, and I’ll see you there.  I hope you haven’t already made me laugh for the last time. 

Thank you all, for making my time at your school exciting, entertaining, wonderful.  All of you were the reason I looked forward to coming to work every day.  And all of you are the reason I’m so sad to be leaving.

We shared countless games of silent ball.  You earned tons of tallies, and the phrase, “Callense!  It’s TOOTSA!” was common some days.  If you were in my homeroom, you humored me by speaking to me in Spanish in the morning and deciphering what I was trying to say when I responded in Spanish.  During class, you struggled (or maybe you didn’t) to stay quiet when someone else had the talking ball (The “Ball of Souls” (or Soles?) if you were in 7A).  7B laughed at my poochie face.  A section of 8A formed the “mustache agents” and led a sneaky surprise into my room almost every day. You got used to yelling “Hey what?!” every time you heard, “Heeeeey Class!”  We had some good times.

We read Anne Frank, researched the Holocaust and countries of the world.  You wrote great bibliographies (not to mention excellent research papers).  We all became a little obsessed with The Hunger Games, and you struggled not to give too many spoilers.  (Thank you, by the way, for having enough respect to not spoil Catching Fire too much for your classmates if you’ve read ahead).  You wrote poetry, short stories, an autobiography, and a lot of paragraphs.  We used AAAWWUBBISes and FANBOYS with ease, even though people from other classes might have thought we were speaking another language when we talked about them. 

Thanks for coming in with smiles on your faces.  Thanks for making long days seem short.  Thanks for giving me all you had; I tried to give you everything I had in return.  A lot of you wrote in my yearbook that you love me and you’ll miss me and that my class was one of your favorites.  Well, the feeling is definitely mutual.   You guys mean the world to me. 

Thanks.

If you’re a student reading this, leave me a comment below with a memory from the year.   

Comments

  1. UnknownMay 22, 2013 at 6:24 PM

    I know we've had some good and bad times, but we've always had fun. I still remember the time when we all earned all of our tallies and then we got to watch the "Matilda" movie while having that party. I know we all learned a lot from this class and that we had tons of fun. But I know that everyone that was in your class or at least took class with you will never forget all the times that we have passed by. I know that we are all going to miss you and hope that you come back someday to Puerto Rico. But what I am totally sure of, is that we all love you and hope you stay. c:

    Sincerely,

    ~Sergio A. de Jesus Colon~

    ReplyDelete

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