To my students at Christmastime: What do I want you to know most? About English? About High School? About Life?

I want you to know that Mark Twain was a social critic and that satire is funny, and that it’s ok to use a strategic fragment every now-and-again. I want you to know that reading is exercise and writing is playtime, but either way, they’re both good for your soul. I want you to know that it’s ok to think deep, to think different, to think long, and to think hard. And that you don’t have to like Nathaniel Hawthorne, but you DO have to appreciate the way the man can turn a phrase.

I want you to know that it’s true what they say: it only get’s better after High School. And no one will care if you were “cool” in high school; in fact, it’s a little cool-lame that you were “cool” in high school, if you know what I mean. But I want you to know, as good as it is going to get after high school, some of your best and favorite memories will come from the time you skipped class to help a friend, that late night hot chocolate run to Will’s Pit Stop with the person you swore you’d love forever but post-high school become mere acquaintances. You will always remember the time you rushed the field and cried because your team won state. You will look back with fondness and the trials you cringe to think about now because these defining moments helped you Come of Age. You’ll remember. You’ll be glad they happened.

I want you to know that in life, what’s most important is not Facebook, or your brand new car, or your lack of car, or even the grades that I desperately want you to care about. What’s important about life is not you. Other people are most important. You don’t see them yet. It is the student in the lunch room with no friends. It is your mom after she does your laundry. It is your future spouse and your one-day children. It is someone you don’t know yet, but that you have the power to bless infinitely.

You, students, are my “other people.” YOU are one of the most important reasons for my life right now.

Merry Christmas, dear students. I am feeling awfully grateful for you today.

…I’m way too sappy about my job. But seriously, everyone should be an English teacher.