To all my students, past or present,

Yes, I am drinking my coffee black and it will take me all day to finish it. I know I look like I’m nineteen years old, but my coffee order is more akin to your Grandpa who drives around in his jacked up truck.

Sometimes I come to school sad. That doesn’t mean I need to dump all of my sadness upon you like we are besties. That would be truly terrible setting of boundaries. But it does mean that I may not smile with the radiance of the sun every single minute. And that is okay.

I am not passionate about your grammar. I actually live in fear of conversations with retired English teachers. They always find me, and they always long to discuss the ways I am diagramming sentences with the youths of America. The truth is that I am not, and never will be passionate about sentence construction. I am far more passionate about getting students to write anything that came from their own creative brains.

No, I will not tell you what music I listen to. It’s none of your business if I spent the entire last weekend shut up in my apartment learning every single word to “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Gordon Lightfoot.

I bought this skirt on Etsy. I buy all of my skirts on Etsy.

I spend a lot of time crying over you. Not because you are mean children, but because I want to be the perfect teacher that heals all the wounds in your heart. But I have slowly learned that is beyond the scope of my abilities. All I can do is show you love the best I can.

I love telling my friends stories about you. I even make up code names for you and my friends begin to become attached to your eccentricities.

I know that TikTok creates the illusion that all teachers are gifted interior designers. I never will be. My first year I actually made the world’s ugliest bulletin board. To anyone who had the tragic experience of setting eyes on that bad boy, my sincerest apologies are due.

No matter what grade I gave you, I think you are so smart and have so much potential. I wish I didn’t have to give you grades. But for now we must reckon with that reality.

When you guys pelted the wall with peanut butter and jelly Uncrustables (you know who you are), I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. Yes, I still think about that day and that unseemly shmear of peanut butter against the stark white tile. That is a day of teaching that I know I will never forget.

There have been live chickens, there have been vocal performances, there have been mock trials, there has been Ratatouille, I have been sung the Reba theme song at least seventeen times. Whatever it takes to prove to you I do care if you do your assignment.

Teaching is really hard. I dearly hope you learned something during our time together; I certainly did.

Sincerely,

Ms. Boersma

Susannah Boersma

Susannah currently lives in New Jersey and works as a 7th grade ELA teacher in East Harlem. When she is not teaching or writing, she can be found exploring independent bookstores, going backpacking, and trying to roller-skate on all the cool trails in the city. She is also recently experienced in the art of citrus skunk repellent (I know you’re impressed).