Two Student Emails

Student who liked you as their teacher:
Hey Mr. Hu,

How have you been? Are you still teaching or have you become so popular that you have retired already?

I just wanted to update you on how I have been as of late.

I was able to get a stable job that I enjoyed shortly after graduating from university.  I remember you telling everyone that the most important thing when looking for a job, is not the job itself, but it should become your career which you enjoyed because no one likes the feeling of being tortured or simply bored.  That's why if students ever needed help, you were often available to talk things over and help them.  I remember sometimes that there would be too many students needing help about either math or personal issues that you ended up having people to set up appointments in order to talk about their issues on some days.

I wanted to thank you for all your support and suggestions with the problems I had during highschool.  You were the only teacher that was able to give me honest, thoughtful and justified alternatives to the choices I had during that time.  I know that you tried your best to help all your students to try and achieve their own dreams and to become the best they can be, with the afterschool tutorials sessions and requested math workshop topics with other math teachers too. I am glad that you were able to convince me that these additional math help available for all students afterschool was beneficial for students like me who had trouble with math concepts.

Thanks for making my highschool math classes entertaining and helping me with issues I had to deal with in my life, you really helped me get back on track on becoming something better that was only a dream at the time.

Take care and hope to see you soon!


Student who did not like you as their teacher:
Hi Mr. Hu

Just wanted to tell you that even though you were not my most favorite teacher, you were still one the teachers that stuck in my mind when thinking of my past teachers.  I know that you tried to help me to get my study habits on track and told me to go to those afterschool math help sessions, but school in general just wasn't for me.  I preferred to hang out with friends and just wanted to have fun.  I had no interest in academics and my parents didn't encourage me to do well in school either.

Similar to my parents, as long as I had some sort of paying job, then the money I got made me happy.  However, since I graduated from college, I noticed that it is harder to find jobs that I enjoy doing and it is really frustrating.  I decided to go back to school, to get another degree in culinary arts, which is my other passion.

I would like to thank you for encouraging me to try harder in school and told me that if I needed any help that I could talk to you.  I know now that your suggestions were just trying to help me make better decisions in life!

Anyways, I should get back to studying and stop procrastinating!

Cheers!


As a teacher, I discovered that my students do find my suggestions to be useful and they do appreciate the effort I make in order to help them.  I am glad to know that my students are able to trust me enough to talk to me about their personal issues when they have no one else to turn to.  The only thing I worry about for my students is that they do not listen and just want to vent and end up doing something they will regret.  Although I am a very good listener, maybe I should be more assertive in making sure that my opinions get across to them and that they will avoid making regretful decisions on their own.