THANK YOU SPEECH

There are saying that the purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
If that is true than Mr .Peralta has succeeded in filling plenty of blank spaces with enough
knowledge to pass examinations. More importantly he has opened our minds to the wonderful
possibilities in life.

It hasn’t been easy for him because, reluctant as most pupils are to admit this, being teacher
is not easy. It demands patience and commitment and a passion for sharing knowledge, quite often
with the people who don’t want to know.

After all if a teacher had a class full of eager, bright students teaching would be enjoyable,
areal meeting of minds. Unfortunately for most of them in school life not like that. Their pupils will
be mixed bunch, some bright, others totally uninterested and the vast majority somewhere between.

That is the challenge that faced Mr. Peralta although of course I would like to be able to
claim that we were a class full of genii.

He faced that the challenge with gusto and expertise. Whether we liked or not he was going
to open those closed mind of ours. He was going to awaken our interest, feed our curiosity, and
show us that learning was enjoyable and worthwhile.

Now I will not claim that was easy. It isn’t in any book of rules but students know that there
is fine line drawn between teachers and pupils and that it isn’t cool to be seen to be too studious. He,
though, managed to get us to sit up and take notice.

He didn’t stop at that though. He became our confidante and our friend. His interest in us was
total.

He wanted the best for us and somehow you can’t resist that. We knew he wanted us to
succeed and someone we wanted to succeed for him.

That is not to say that he wanted us to pass our exams with flying colours. Naturally he
would like that. More importantly, though he wanted us to prove our own worth in our different
abilities and he set great store on accepting those differences and respecting them. Furthermore he
expected his whole class to appreciate difference and respect others. More than anything though he
wanted each one of us to challenge ourselves and to accept that challenge and meet our own
individual potential.

There are many opportunities in life and he wanted us to be aware of them and not to limit
ourselves in any way. He had good relationship with our parents too and always wanted us to work
together as a team, pupil, parents and teacher working for our common good. Above all his
wonderful sense of humour brightened our days and, as a student I hate to admit this, made of school
not such bad place after all.

He was interested in all our extra-curricular activities and was always keen to learn about our
games, our hobbies and our interest s. if he could he would have a personalised curriculum for every
pupil according to those interests. As that was not possible he did his best to make the one we had as
relevant to our world as is possible. Put simple he was a born teacher.