May 20, 2009Dear ________,Almost ten years ago, my AP English teacher handed me an envelope, which I keep safelyensconced in my yearbook, pressed between the pages preserving some moment in time, andbrought out and handled every so often to remind me of days past. In that letter, he thanked me(in his words) “for the gift of your being.”Exactly one year and two days ago, I sat down at my computer and penned a letter to my seniorstudents. I don’t know why I felt compelled to do such a thing. But I guess spending nine monthswith someone creates an attachment that isn’t easy to let go of.And finally, just today, I was hit by an end-of-year-i-can’t-believe-the-year-we’ve-had-i-can’t-imagine-next-year-not-seeing-you-seniors-in-the-hallways-or-elevator moment. Believe me, it’snot true – no matter what your teachers may let on – that we love all our classes.
Especially
because of that fact, I want you to know: teaching you has been super enjoyable for me. I havelearned so much from you. Not in the ways of mathematics (of which I have all of you schooled),but about – yes, I’m about to get all annoyingly over-dramatic on you now – the humancondition.Take a moment, and remember the day you first came to class, and what you knew. You weremathematical infants, with only a few symbols on your coat of arms:
+
,
−
,
×
,, .Throughout the year, you sewed
lim
x a
→
,
∞
,
d dx
, and
∫
onto your shield, and vanquished suchexotic creatures as L’Hôpital, implicit differentiation, and the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus(Part II, no less!) in some pretty epic intellectual battles. For many of you, I am pretty sure therewere times that you felt like you were knocked down and probably wouldn’t be able to get up.Hey, buddy, calculus ain’t always easy. If it were, they’d teach it to the fourth graders, yo.If you save this letter and come back to read it ten years from now, just know that at one point inyour life, you actually could find
''(/4)
F
π
if
()sin()cos()
x
F x t t dt
π
=
∫
, and prove andunderstand
2
1
ba
dy L dxdx
= +
∫
. You’ve come a long way, baby. (And if you are reading thisten years from now and don’t know what these symbols mean, you’ve lost a lot along the way,kiddo!)
Leave a Comment