Saying Good-Bye

If you read my book post this week on the Best Tools for Schools blog post, you would have read about the dilema of finding a gift for my daughter to give to her grade 2 teacher. Finding a gift for a teacher at the end of the school  year can be hard in general, but this gift was especially hard because my daughter’s teacher was not only leaving the school, she was leaving the province.

The parents decided to throw a going away party on behalf of their kids, as a way to thank Ms. B for her work during the school year and to wish her the best of luck on her new adventure. The kids were so excited about surprising Ms. B. after school (we held the party in the school library). The kids were hiding behind bookshelves, in corners, behind chairs and under tables. And of course they kept changing their hiding spots too. My kids got right into the whole hiding fun also.

We wanted to give Ms. B a gift that would help her remember all her students so we decided to create a thank you book. Each child in the class drew a picture or wrote a note expressing how much the loved and would miss Ms. B and we packed it up into a book with the class photo on front. I almost started crying as she wiped the tears from her face looking through everyone’s notes.

Ms. B was a great teacher which is obvious from the amazing love from all her students. The kids and parents are all sad to see her go. We know what ever school she ends up at those students will be lucky to have her.

My daughter on the other hand isn’t happy and cried almost the whole night about her favourite teacher leaving. I’ve tried to console her with the idea of writing Ms. B, letting her old teacher know how she’s doing. We can only hope my daughter and her class are fortunate enough to get a new teacher for Grade 3 that can live up to the standards that Ms. B. has set.

Have you had a teacher who’s made such an impact on your life that you’ve been upset about loosing them to a new class?