The Home Stretch

After looking at my kids' grades for the second grading period, I noticed that the distribution was pretty much the same as the first grading period, except for there were some students whose grades dropped and other students whose grades shot right up. I took the time to email a student immediately after my grades were finished to let her know that she had gone from an F in the first grading period to a B-. I had spoken to her father on the phone late in the first grading period, and he showed a great deal of concern for his daughter's performance, so I wanted to make sure that he would hear about the good news as soon as possible.

In the email I thanked the student for her hard work, told her to be proud, and told her to let her parents know she did well. A few days later I received a really touching email from the student's father. If I were to never teach again after this semester, this one email would be enough to make me feel like I accomplished something as a teacher.

The email was the forwarded exchange of emails between the father and student. Apparently, my student had forward the email I sent her entitled "Second Grading Period," and added "**this should make your day" to the subject line. Typing in all capital letters she told her dad to LOOK AT WHAT HER TEACHER SENT HER! The email I received included the parent's reply to the student as well as a message to me. In his message to me he expressed his appreciation of my taking the time to inform him of his child's performance, which made me feel nice, but it was really nothing compared to seeing what he had said to his daughter. He basically expressed how he knew she could improve her school performance, to keep it up, and that "YES! it did make [his] day.]

Emails are nice. I'm glad that I wasn't able to find this parent's cell phone number and had to resort to the email. If this were all done over the phone I wouldn't have this awesome email. Way better than any emails I've ever received from any ex-girlfriends. So much fun.