To All My Students I’ve Ever Tutored

Dearest students,

For the last four years, you have spurred my heart to race with rage and fury. You have joked with friends at the table, uttered inappropriate words, played with phones, and otherwise misbehaved when your parents have left the room. You have often made me question why I do what I do.

You’ve also blessed me in ways you’ll never realize.

Coming from an adolescent academia of isolation, I never fathomed reentering the educational realm. For all my classroom horrors of yesteryear, I wanted nothing more to do with a world of textbooks and white boards and bells that rang for lunch or PE.

I thought I wanted nothing more to do with you, either. I was once a teenage student myself, and I know your kind quite well. Your hormones, your cruel comments, your fickle cliques. I am not a fan.

Or, at least, so I thought.

I could have never fathomed experiencing such joy in your presence.

When you walked in and sat across from me and asked how my day was going.

When you told me about the latest movie you saw with your friends.

When you beamed with pride over the retelling of last night’s touchdown.

When you tried to guess my age and you were off by at least a decade.

When you rushed over to be in my chaperone group.

When you snapped unsuspecting selfies with me.

When you laughed uncontrollably at my supposed wit and I laughed too even though we were both technically “wasting” time.

When you asked for the date of my birthday.

When you remembered my birthday.

When you penned me thank you notes.

When you decreed me the greatest tutor ever.

When you unwittingly took my own broken teenage years and glued the jagged pieces into something altogether new a decade later.

To all my students I’ve ever tutored at middle schools, learning centers, living rooms, and local Starbucks:

Thank you.

You’ve changed me. You’ve remade me. You’ve done for me what I feel like I was supposed to do for you these last four years.

Because of you, I’m different. I am so different.

Because of you, I will never be the same.

Words will never fully express my gratitude. I can’t wait to see the life-changing men and women you become. The ones we’re all catching certain glimpses of even now.

Study well,

(Mr.) Tom