Ok thanks for all the replies! I just realized it’s summertime and he might not be teaching summer school. The email I have is the one through the school district. Should I wait until school starts again to email? Or do you teachers check your inbox even when class is not in session?
Impossible to say. Does no harm to send an email, nor to preface it with “don’t know if you’ll get this before the summer…”
I emailed one of my high school teachers to let him know that I still thought about him. He was delighted to hear that I appreciated his classes, and still remembered him. Teachers don’t go into teaching for the money, they do it because they want to make a difference.
The careers of my grandparents set the benchmarch for me teaching: they were smalltown college professors who’d stayed on the job about 40 years.
My grandfather passed on 10 years ago, five years ago the college named its art museum for him. 30 of his former art majors showed up at the grand opening exhibition and gave lovely tributes. My grandmother STILL gets former students, now in their fifties and sixties, who drop by and visit her, write her letters and yes – even the occassional email. (I helped my grandmother pick out her first computer six years ago; she’s now on her third.)
Tisn’t weird. It doesn’t happen enough.
I just happened to run in to one of my old Jr. High School Principals from the 9th grade. (It’s been 20years for me.)
I used to be a little shit back then and was practicaly in his office on a daily basis.
I remember one day I was in his office. I can’t remember what I had done. All I do know is I was about to get five swats from the pricipal.
So I’m in there trying to talk my way out of getting my ass whipped. I went in to this big long spiel about how violence is wrong and how years from now people will look back on this and wonder what the hell we were thinking…yadda,yadda yadda…
He sat there patiently listing to what I had to say. After I was done he told me: " You know Shakes, you make a very good arguement. It really gives puase for thought. I think one of these days you’ll make and excellent Lawyer. Your still getting the swats but I like your debating skills son*
This is why I admire this man so much. No matter how many times I fucked up he would always take the time and actually talk to me like a human being. He also always told me I’m “Better than this.” The guy NEVER lost his patience with me (Which was no small task, let me tell you.)
Anyway, I’m glad I got the chance to tell him how much of a positive infuence he was.
Funny story when I met him: After 20years he really didn’t remember who I was. Then I told him: “Remeber that guy that got slapped in the face by his science teacher because he was such a smart-ass?”
He was like: “OH YEAH! That was you?!”
It hasn’t been ten years, but I still go VISIT my teachers. I was lucky to have really awsome teachers throughout my education and one of them is even one of my best friends now.
I occasionally still visit my middle school teachers - my two favorite teachers have passed on, but the ones that are left are still pretty awsome. And they’re always tickled pink to see or hear from me. I’d say go for it.
A lot of school districts allow their teachers to access their e-mails from home, so I’d fire it off and see what happens.
~Tasha
I emailed a college professor of mine who was instrumental in my career choice. Even tho it was fifteen years ago, he claimed to remember me and was thrilled to hear from me. I think it would be nice to hear that you’ve had a positive impact on someone’s life.
I did it. It was a good experience for both of us. Go for it. Teachers are teachers because they want to make a difference. Proof of that must be very rewarding for them. Spread a little joy.
I sent a former teacher of mine a letter years ago, and he was pleased to receive it. I actually did get a reply. So yes – go ahead and send that email. Not weird at all.
I’ve wanted to contact an old teacher of mine, but have been unsuccessful. I can really pinpoint him as being the most positive influence in my life. If not for him pushing me to see the “possibilities out there” right at the time when I needed that guidance, I think my life would have been quite mediocre and unsatisfying. (I’m getting all misty just typing this).
I used to make a point of going around to my college profs the next semester and thanking the ones that did a good job. (I always did it later so there could be no mistake that it was sincere and not an attempt at brown nosing.) It was always well received, sometimes it brought tears.
As a former teacher, I always like to hear if someone appreciated me. I would love an e-mail from an old student.
It seems to me that the kind of teacher that can really touch you is likely to be the kind of person that would care enough to love the affirmation.
Slightly related:
Instead of emailing them, I visit them at my old grade schools. My parents live in the same neighborhood that I grew up in. Every few years, while I’m in town, I pay a visit to my old elementary school, junior high school and high school.
I stop by the main office and give my name. The clerk, who at times has been working there since I was a student, takes the names of former teachers that I remember. He/She then checks current staff listings and makes a few calls. If time allows, the teachers let me drop in for a visit.
It’s a strange but great feeling to be back to a place which holds lots of childhood memories, good and bad. The teachers are always happy to see you and hear what you’ve been doing. In many instances, they ask me to tell short stories to students about my travels/experiences or answer questions from my childhood days.
In my cases, I’ve been lucky that they remember me! It’s just a handful of them that I have visited, and it’s always been fun.
I’ve visited and e-mailed old teachers, and they’ve almost always been thrilled and thankful to hear from me. (The exception was one of my undergrad professors, whom I e-mailed seeking a definitive answer for this question; he never responded, about which I am slightly miffed.)
I’ve also had a former student of mine approach me in a bar, about five years after he took my Freshman Composition course. I was mortified that I didn’t remember him, although I did remember his name. He told me at length about one lesson in particular I’d given and how he’d gotten a powerful life-lesson from it that had served him well many times in the intervening years. I was (and remain) thrilled.
Others have already said it, but I’ll add another Yes vote. My parents both love it when their former students contact them.
I’m a teacher.
Do it. Teachers are under-thanked and often forgotten.
You will make their year by letting them know they count.
I’m a teacher and I am happy to get e-mail from former pupils.
As others have said remember we teach a lot of students, so make sure you clearly identify yourself.
The reason we teachers live for this sort of contact is that we work in one of the most void-surrounded fields imaginable.
Think of how often, in your current profession, you get information regarding the success or failure of your recent actions, how often you find out whether your work goals have been accomplished.
Now realize that the teacher’s ultimate work goal is to provide the student with the skills and knowledge they will need to be successful in life. I mean, how much more freakin’ ABSTRACT could it BE? So we do what we have been told as well as what we believe are the things that will lead this amorphous result.
Now, think about your worst teachers. For example, just before I left Boston in 1997, I met a friend for a farewell drink. He brought along a friend of his, who turned out to my high school biology teacher, a man whose class I nearly failed. I had not been in a room with him for fifteen years, we were both completely different people, and yet I could barely sit there and have a beer with the guy. He wasn’t teaching anymore and didn’t remember me, but I was seething with how my failure to grasp the material, and what I perceived as his failure to show me the way to success, and the sense of utter defeat I had felt as a result, had affected many decisions I had made in those intervening years. Did I confront him with this litany? Of course not, it would have been unimaginably rude and pointless.
My point is that teachers almost never hear about when they fail to accomplish their goal for a particular student, unless they kill, maim or molest that young person. And the dedicated among us live in constant fear of being that unsuccessful, life-scarring teacher for a specific pupil. But we rarely, if ever, know for a fact that we are or aren’t. Same goes for knowing whether what the student did in the classroom helped them achieve whatever it is that they wound up wanting to achieve. Like I said, surrounded by a void.
So imagine our delight when a grown person of whom we may have dim memories at best comes to us and tells us that something we did actually WORKED?!? That however they have chosen to define success in their lives, they have achieved some measure of it and attribute it directly to something we did in our little teaching-bubble before we thrust that person out into the void?
By all means, send that e-mail.
I just got an e-mail from a student who was turning in the paper that’s due Monday. She also said that she enjoyed the assignment. Believe me, my students do not feel any need to suck up, so this is real feedback. Made my day.
I would think that teacher would be overjoyed to find out that he had been a positive influence in someone’s life.
God, this thread is so timely for me. I got the phone numbers of two of my old football coaches several months ago. I was a lonely, frustrated, angst-filled kid growing up in a vacuum in the middle of nowhere in the early 90s, and what they taught me about being a man (NOT being a jock) composed everything I knew on the subject for quite a long time. I want to call them both so badly, but I’m always afraid to. Maybe I’m still too emotional about the past, or maybe I’m afraid they’ll just shrug and say “thanks,” when what I really want to hear is that those years loom as large in their memory as they do mine. To hear otherwise would tell me I really am just one more speck of dust, and I don’t want to know that.