To be honest, I’m not even sure where to begin as I write this.
During my final four years of school, my life situation was best described as utter crap. I’m not going to explain it much because you already know. At school, I was getting one detention after the other. It’s not that the teachers wanted to give me them but I didn’t really give them a choice. I just began to lose the will to care much about anything and that included the stress of school work. It got even worse in my first year of 6th form after I was kicked out of my house by my parents.
Honestly, I don’t think I would have made it through any of those years without the support I received from my teachers. There were days I into school on the verge of a breakdown, contemplating if I could take it any longer. On days like that I was do glad I knew I could come to your classroom area office during break or a free period. You didn’t mind if I sat there and got a rant off my chest, cried to you or just sat there with you in silence because I couldn’t even begin to express myself properly. You sat there through it all, you listened to me and comforted or even knocked a reality check into me when I really needed it. Even if you were busy you still managed to make time for me, despite the millions of other things you had on your plate to deal with. To say that you sacrificed your own time for me would be one hell of an understatement.
Whether you knew it or not, some if those times I came to talk to you, I was certain that the only way to stop the pain I was feeling was to simply end of my life. Those times that you’d chat with me brought me back to reality, grounded me and let me believe I could fight through anything. I’m not even sure I could admit that to your faces to this day. At my lowest point you knew I was using drugs, you didn’t even judge me, all you ever tried to do was help me through it. I never actually told you that I purposely took an overdose in year 13. I can’t even remember why I did it, I guess I just gave up. You never knew it happened but you still noticed I was going through a hard time, yet again. And, yet again like every other time you gave up your time to let me talk to you. Aside from the unbelievable friends that I have you were a big part of the reason I pushed through that.
Even academically, you optionally took time out of your week after you finished to help me with work that I slacked off from doing when I was supposed to. I don’t even believe I would have even have scraped passes from my GCSEs to my A-Levels if it wasn’t for you quite literally bending over backwards for me.
You taught he far more then any textbook and syllabus ever could. You taught me about life and responsibility and to even care about myself as much as you showed me that others do.
I don’t even believe I could have ever showed any of you enough the appreciation for everything you have ever done for me. I wouldn’t even be alive to for me to sit here and write this if it wasn’t for those times you were a friend I could talk to or a councillor I could confide in. You have been and always will be more than a teacher to me, you were and are my hero.
Truly, over those years the many things you have all done for me, I don’t think I could ever properly describe to any of you how thankful I am to have had you in my life. You have inspired me. This Autumn I am finally doing to uni to begin my degree and then afterward my teaching qualification. I hope that maybe I can one day be half as amazing as you are and do for others as you have done for me.
