Teaching can be a demanding, stressful job in many ways. One of the ways is having to discipline kids and maintain order in the classroom. Fortunately, most of my students are well-behaved and eager to learn. But every year, there is one or two that are determined to let me know that I cannot control them. This year I have especially been working on disliking and dealing with the behavior but still affirming the dignity of the student. So what this is leading to is that one of my “challenging” students gave me a this letter last week:

“Dear Mrs. Sorrell,
I thank you for teaching me Algebra this year. I now that I’m not the perfect student. That I’m most of the time I’m not nice to you. I’m sorry for that but now that I go to church I understand that it wasn’t your fault that I had a bad day. You only try to help me and teach me. I thank you for that. But from now on I promise that I’m going to try my best in your class. Because you work so hard to teach us. I thank God for sending me a nice teacher that teaches me Algebra.”

Cool, huh?