The last week of classes before Christmas always found my students in class writing a thank you letter to someone they loved and admired: a parent, grandparent, or sibling, a coach, a friend. The one stipulation was that they were forbidden to write to me. I provided envelopes, paper, and stamps, and sent out a grocery sack full of letters at the end of the week.
This year a group of former students revived that exercise, only they wrote their letters to me.
This year a group of former students revived that exercise, only they wrote their letters to me.
After spending most of the Christmas season at the coast and then with my son and his family in Asheville, I returned to my apartment in my daughter’s home in Front Royal, Virginia, to find a score of letters addressed to me, letters from young people who had attended those seminars I once offered to homeschooling students in the Asheville area. One of the students had contacted my daughter for the address, and the letters followed.
The next day was January 6th, the Feast of the Epiphany, the celebration of the Magi bringing gifts to a baby in a manger. That is the day I began reading some of my students’ gifts to me.
This following note is my reply to those of you who wrote to me. Because some of you wrote such lengthy letters—collectively, they would make a small book--I can’t adequately respond individually and so am posting my letter to you here. I hope one or more of you will receive this response and pass it on to others.
Dear students,
Thank you so much for making this Christmas of 2016 so special for me. Your letters meant more to me than you know.
Many of you wrote of the events in your lives. Three of you have married this past year. Two of you are now apparently a couple, a result of meeting each other in my seminars. A good number of you are in colleges and universities, and several more are off to college this coming fall. Reading about your lives and accomplishments brought many smiles here.
All of you also offered high compliments regarding my teaching. You wrote of how much you had learned in my classes and how I had inspired and believed in you. Thank you for those compliments.
But I have to tell you something. You all seem to think I am a great teacher, and yet I have only one explanation as to why this might be so. Mostly, I just enjoyed what I was teaching, and I had fun while doing it.
But that’s not the explanation.
In World War I, Colonel Douglas MacArthur, later commander of our Pacific forces in World War II, elicited “a fierce loyalty from his troops.” Trying to account for this attitude by his comrades-in-arms, biographer William Manchester wrote of MacArthur that “he shared their discomforts and dangers, and he adored them in return.”
There it is. I adored you, even when you goofed off in class or failed to turn in your homework or got caught running across the roof of the church where we held classes. (As I matured as a teacher, many of your antics brought me much amusement, laughter hidden behind a mask, but laughter nonetheless.) Before the beginning of every school year, I used to wonder whether that affection for you would come back again to me. And every year it kicked in as soon as classes started. Why I felt so strongly about you and wanted so much for you is another mystery for which I have no adequate explanation. I just did.
When I think of you, you are not enrolled in college, or pursuing a career, or married and raising children. No—I always see you in my mind’s eye as you were at age twelve, fourteen, and sixteen, sweet or moody, gregarious or shy, talkative or silent, but all of you on your way to being adults. I wanted so much for you to succeed in ways I had failed. I wanted so much for you to be a better person than I was.
Those notes you sent—and by the way, all of were well-written and deserving of an A—told me my wishes have come true. Your parents, your families, and your friends have shaped you into adults ready to engage the world.
You sent your notes and thanked me for being your teacher. Here I want to thank you for being my students. Teaching you was one of my greatest of pleasures, one of the delights of my life.
I wish I could always be the man some of you think me to be. What I would ask you to remember is not me, but some of the ideas you gathered from class: “Life is an adventure;” “Live to the hilt;” “Sentences (and life) need strong verbs;” “Carpe diem;” and other fragments of those hours we spent together.
You make me proud to know you.
Best wishes and may God bless you.
I love you,
Mr. Minick
The next day was January 6th, the Feast of the Epiphany, the celebration of the Magi bringing gifts to a baby in a manger. That is the day I began reading some of my students’ gifts to me.
This following note is my reply to those of you who wrote to me. Because some of you wrote such lengthy letters—collectively, they would make a small book--I can’t adequately respond individually and so am posting my letter to you here. I hope one or more of you will receive this response and pass it on to others.
Dear students,
Thank you so much for making this Christmas of 2016 so special for me. Your letters meant more to me than you know.
Many of you wrote of the events in your lives. Three of you have married this past year. Two of you are now apparently a couple, a result of meeting each other in my seminars. A good number of you are in colleges and universities, and several more are off to college this coming fall. Reading about your lives and accomplishments brought many smiles here.
All of you also offered high compliments regarding my teaching. You wrote of how much you had learned in my classes and how I had inspired and believed in you. Thank you for those compliments.
But I have to tell you something. You all seem to think I am a great teacher, and yet I have only one explanation as to why this might be so. Mostly, I just enjoyed what I was teaching, and I had fun while doing it.
But that’s not the explanation.
In World War I, Colonel Douglas MacArthur, later commander of our Pacific forces in World War II, elicited “a fierce loyalty from his troops.” Trying to account for this attitude by his comrades-in-arms, biographer William Manchester wrote of MacArthur that “he shared their discomforts and dangers, and he adored them in return.”
There it is. I adored you, even when you goofed off in class or failed to turn in your homework or got caught running across the roof of the church where we held classes. (As I matured as a teacher, many of your antics brought me much amusement, laughter hidden behind a mask, but laughter nonetheless.) Before the beginning of every school year, I used to wonder whether that affection for you would come back again to me. And every year it kicked in as soon as classes started. Why I felt so strongly about you and wanted so much for you is another mystery for which I have no adequate explanation. I just did.
When I think of you, you are not enrolled in college, or pursuing a career, or married and raising children. No—I always see you in my mind’s eye as you were at age twelve, fourteen, and sixteen, sweet or moody, gregarious or shy, talkative or silent, but all of you on your way to being adults. I wanted so much for you to succeed in ways I had failed. I wanted so much for you to be a better person than I was.
Those notes you sent—and by the way, all of were well-written and deserving of an A—told me my wishes have come true. Your parents, your families, and your friends have shaped you into adults ready to engage the world.
You sent your notes and thanked me for being your teacher. Here I want to thank you for being my students. Teaching you was one of my greatest of pleasures, one of the delights of my life.
I wish I could always be the man some of you think me to be. What I would ask you to remember is not me, but some of the ideas you gathered from class: “Life is an adventure;” “Live to the hilt;” “Sentences (and life) need strong verbs;” “Carpe diem;” and other fragments of those hours we spent together.
You make me proud to know you.
Best wishes and may God bless you.
I love you,
Mr. Minick
RSS Feed