What Students Want to Remember

For the past twenty years I have been passionate about trying to give students experiences they hopefully won’t forget. It didn’t occur to me until recently how much power there is in giving them the opportunity to choose what they want to remember. A former colleague recommended that we ask our fourth graders to write letters to themselves eight years in the future as graduated seniors, collect their addresses, and mail them back eight years later. Last week I dove into the words of my very last class.

I had read each letter as students turned them in back in June of 2015, but it wasn’t until I opened them a few days ago that I realized what these fabulous human beings did for themselves. As one might expect, they asked countless questions about their favorite singers, colors, and colleges they might attend with anticipation of what they would one day discover. As one might also expect, they asked their future selves to remember the experiences they had in fourth grade and to never forget each other.

“Best year ever” was the goal we were trying to achieve and several students wrote about the pride they felt in owning it. A few referred to our space as a second home which made me melt. They wrote about their strengths, described our superhero performance and music video, and explained what being a PIRATE learner meant to them. The pens of my quietest students came to life in ways I couldn’t have predicted and I found myself laughing out loud quite a bit. One student referred to me as crazy (in a good way) so I assured him I still am.

These unique fourth graders, however, did something else. Every one of my twenty-four students told their future selves to remember how special they are. In fact it quickly became clear that they so passionately wanted to hold onto the belief they had in who they were at nine and ten years old. I loved being a classroom teacher with all of my heart. I never expected that reading letter after letter would throw me right into the heart of teaching. My students were giving themselves a gift. It was their advice. It was their wisdom. It was their love.

Below are a few quotes from their letters.

“Never forget that YOU MATTER.”

“You are beautiful. You are a superhero. You have so many superpowers.”

“You have a contribution to make so go out there and make it!”

As we head into a new school year, I will do my best to use this story as a source of inspiration to think big and go for the unforgettable. More than anything, however, (and I would love for anyone reading this to join me) I will use it as a reminder to give students space to own an experience, discover who they are in the process and who they hope to be. I will certainly try my best to inspire my colleagues to do the same. And if we can take it one step further and ask our students to creatively capture and hold onto this kind of courage, as my students so beautifully did in their letters, their impact will have no limit.

In Lead beyond Your Title, I write in great detail about our adventures in 2015 with PIRATE learning, the You Matter Movement, Genius Hour, SuperYOU, and more. In my latest post, Learning to Fly, I describe what it was like to attend graduation and to learn that it all mattered more than I knew. Now, students are unfolding an invaluable treasure and I only wish I could be there to see their reactions.

I know they’ve heard this many times, but I will be forever grateful to Dave Burgess, Beth Houf, Jay Billy, Angela Maiers, Paul Solarz, Lourds Lane, (and more!) for taking time out of their schedules to make a difference in the lives of twenty-four elementary students who are about to go out there and make their contributions to the world.

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It took one person to encourage me to write my first blog post and since then, I have decided to keep writing about anything I’m truly inspired by.  This led to writing a Lead Like a PIRATE series guidebook, Lead beyond Your Title: Creating Change in School From Any Role. My last crew of fourth graders will always remain the heart of every page.