Heart Melt Moment



Earlier this week one of my student’s parents sent me an email excited that her child was finally in a class with a teacher that has a Scholastic account. We emailed back and forth about the importance of books and the importance of finding a book that students are interested in. She mentioned the possibility of her and her husband getting some books for the students and wanted to know how many students I have. I work in a school that is departmentalized so I have 3 ELA classes. That’s a total of 62 students. I cringed at the thought of sharing that info. I thought that a large number of students would damper their desire. She also asked if there was a book that I wanted. One of my favorite books is The One and Only Ivan. I purchased 6 copies of it for my classroom library and unfortunately, all 6 copies went “missing” by December of last year. I was hurt that my books were “disappearing”, but I just resolved to replace them whenever I could afford to. A day or so later I received another email. The parent informed me that she had purchased 10 copies of The One and Only Ivan for me and had also purchased a book for all 62 of my students! I was overwhelmed with gratitude. 

You may be wondering why am I so thrilled about this, but this is a huge deal to me. Getting children to fall in love with books is my goal, and this parent has stepped up in a major way. What I love most about this experience is that she gets it. She understands that we have to get books that are interesting in our students' hands, and then there may be some hope for getting students to enjoy reading! Today my heart is full, and I feel like my dreams for kids aren’t too far fetched. I also feel like my work is not in vain. In her first email, she mentioned how much her child loves my class, and how she and her husband just felt compelled to do something for my class. In a grossly underappreciated profession, their kind gesture means a lot. 


I can’t wait for that red and white box to be delivered to my classroom! What I love even more about this experience is the fact that the family wants to remain anonymous! I thought that was just beautiful, genuine, and completely selfless.

To all of my teacher friends out there keep doing what you do each day for your students, you never know how it is impacting them and their families. And who knows, maybe a parent will donate a book or 72!
0