So there's an article in the Huff Post circulating about this student note:
I would venture to say this is the kind of note that is every teacher's dream gift and motivation, and I've been so blessed to have received similar notes and messages through the years. I always treasure them.
This has been an especially difficult semester, but God knew just how to strengthen and encourage me here at the semester's end. And it's made me realize more than ever that it doesn't matter how short a season you interact with a person - you can have great influence in his or her life.
Can I be really honest? My passion is music. Stick with me. What I mean is my passion is music and teaching music is a natural extension of that desire to enable others to experience the same emotions, perhaps transcendence even, that music stirs within me. Because of that, I'm absolutely thrilled when those student notes express things like, "I could never hit that high A before you!!" I love that. But what I think is easy to overlook is the fact that, as a teacher, I have the capacity to impact students in ways other than musically.
Just this semester, there's the note from a former student thanking me for building his confidence and helping pull him out of a dark depression. There's the note in which a student thanked me for being an inspiration and for holding such high expectations that my classes helped draw him off a path of self-destruction and drug abuse. There's the note in which a student credits me for helping encourage and push her to keep working hard and become a successful student in all her classes. There's the anonymous note that thanked me for always being a wonderful example of Christ's love.
Whether posted on social media for all to see, sent in a private email, or handwritten on a card, these notes mean so very much to me. Trust me: It's all too easy to focus on those students who fail. These are the ones I cannot help because they refuse to meet me halfway. It's the most discouraging facet of teaching - students who don't succeed! It saddens me that these students haven't been academically motivated before they get to college and don't seem to connect their own discipline with a better life in the future.
As a teacher, that's what I want most of all - to give students a reason to want to succeed. To help them find value in being excellent in whatever they put their hand or mind to, in doing their very best. Not because they think I deserve their best, but because THEY deserve to know the fruits of their own best labor.
So here is my thank you to my students, past, present, and future, who decide to do their best. You are the reason I keep teaching. You are MY inspiration. Now...let me share some music with you.
