This is Mrs. Lloyd. Bianca had to say goodbye to her fourth grade teacher on July 1. Bianca was tearful and it was amazing to me how attached she became to this teacher. I think one reason is because every week Bianca had to write Mrs. Lloyd a letter about what was going on with her life and the things that are important to her. The teacher would respond, and I feel like this really gave Bianca a personal relationship with her teacher. Sometimes Bianca would ask me not to look at the letter after she printed it off. I tried to not let it hurt my feelings. Sometimes she wanted things to herself and I had to respect that. On the last week, Mrs. Lloyd bound all Bianca's letters together into a book and let her take them home to keep as a journal. On the last day of school, Bianca wrote Mrs. Lloyd one last letter to tell her how much she would miss her (that she didn't have to give back). Bianca told me I could read this one and it seriously brought me to tears. It reminded me of a quote I had put aside after reading Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: "The classics tell us that, in relationships, the one between teacher and student comes second only to the one between parent and child."
Bianca also came home on the last day of school saying she had won the gold award. She'd been talking about this award for weeks now about how much she wanted it. Well, she got it. I didn't know if this was a big deal or not. But I guess only one other student in the class got a gold award. It was called the President's Education Award and is signed by Mr. Barack Obama himself (okay, yeah, I know it's most certainly stamped but still, maybe this gold award was more important than I realized). What a productive year Bianca has had. I'm so proud of her!
Today, on July 26, was Bianca's first day of fifth grade. Her new teacher is Mrs. Jensen. I hope this year will be as wonderful as the last one. Time will tell.
1 comment:
That's sweet she loved her teacher so much. Chaylee was really sad to have her year end with her teacher this past year too. They also did the once a week letter and response. I liked how much it got Chaylee talking about things we don't always talk about it, so over the summer, I picked up where her teacher left off and we began writing back and forth to each other. It was kind of neat and I may just continue it with my kids to make it a tradition. That is a beautiful quote. It makes me think about how as parents we are teachers too and makes me want to be more influential in my children's lives.
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