Belated Appreciation

Dear Opal School Teachers

I am writing to express my unending gratitude for the gifts you have given to my children… in all likelihood my someday grandchildren, and their children as well. You have created environments in which they have learned about themselves and the important role they play in the group. You have allowed them to struggle without shame, and to courageously do over when they've made mistakes. You have taught them that they need the others. That community transcends friendship. That everyone belongs. 

Rachel Carson wrote:

"If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength." 

All of you Opal School teachers must be the good fairies she was thinking of. You have allowed my children to trust that the world of their imaginations and their ideas is a world of value that we all need. You have convinced them that their unique perspectives are welcome. They've never forgotten that they can speak in a hundred languages. You helped them remember because you listened.

Thank you, Opal Teachers, for making these big ideas real. 

Love,

Susan