5.29.2019
Dear Senior Self,
My oh my how has the time passed where you are already a senior?! I can still remember move-in day like it was yesterday. The thought of moving into this foreign place, a foreign community with foreign people. I hope that by now, it has become anything but foreign. That is has become a home. Remember to say thank you to all the people that have helped make this special place a home. To the people that have helped you achieve your dream of becoming a educator, that have been there to support and encourage you, laugh with you, educate you, and walk with you. Because if it weren’t for them, there is no way you would be where you are today.
I hope you’re excited to be a teacher!! Gosh writing this now, I’m excited for you. Never forget that these kids deserve your all. All your effort, encouragement, kindness, patience, energy, passion for education, excitement, strength, and dedication. There will most certainly be days where you fail to give this to them, but never fail at trying. And when you do fail, get back up again. Learn from your mistakes and even though I know you will fixate on them, remember that all of life is a learning process and your mistakes are a way you continue to learn outside of the traditional classroom.
As you take charge in the classroom as a teacher, remember that it is not just content that you are teaching but qualities, life lessons, and are aiding in the development of characteristics that these children will carry with them as they become citizens in our community. Scholarship is more than just educating them about the world they live in, which is incredibly important. Yet it goes one step further, it entails educating their problem solving and critical thinking skills so that they can be involved, respectful, kind, and hardworking citizens.
You should be working to develop these characteristics by modeling them for your students,and hopefully you will foster a community in your classroom that is actively respectful, kind, educating, and engaging. As you support your students, your students should support one another as peers. I wish all of the best for you and your future students. Teaching is not at all an easy career, but I know that you have the passion and the drive for it. Your community is not only in your classroom, but you are apart of a community of teachers, a community of the place that you live in, and if wherever your endeavors take you. You care, Anna. Never forget that you care and there is a reason why you have dedicated your career to education.
One of the greatest pillars that has been a staple in your life is service. Service has been apart of you since middle school, it has greatly shaped who you are and I hope that you haven’t let your desire and love for service fall behind. As much as your classroom is a community, it is also apart of a bigger community. I hope that you will incorporate service into your classroom because it will impact it for the better.
Finally, Anna. I hope you are more than proud of yourself because even writing this letter to my future self, I am so proud of you. For all the trials and tribulations that you will face and overcome, don’t let them weigh you down. You are going to make mistakes, and that is okay. You are still a good person even if you do. Learn from them, and use them to become an even better version of yourself. And stop comparing yourself to others, you are a unique person, with your own talents and flaws. Just do and be the best Anna Lindsay Sotelo that you can be.
Kill it in the classroom and in life.
Sincerely,
Anna Sotelo (2019)