I’ve never been a very sentimental person. I rarely cry watching movies. When I get holiday cards from friends with pictures of their family, I throw them out come January. But last spring, I noticed a habit of mine that went against that grain. For most of my career, I have hung on to the thank-you notes my students give me.
It started in my first year of teaching with a memento. One of my physics classes was chronically late because the students went to a local coffee shop in the free period before class. One day, I made a joke, “If you’ll be this late, at least bring a coffee for me, too.” At the end of the year, the students made a thank-you card and got a coffee sleeve from the shop and put every one of their signatures on it. I still have that sleeve, signed by people who are in their thirties now.
I’d not really thought about my habit for many years. I get a card; I put it in the card box. The only reason I thought hard on it was because I happened to change schools in the spring of 2025—one Providence, R.I., independent school to another nearby. I looked at my thank-you notes because I was assessing whether to keep them in the move. To my surprise, I kept them. I found a place in my new classroom for the thank-you-note box.
Then the school year took several wrenching turns, both personal and public. In December, three days before my sister’s wedding, my mother had a stroke. Mom and Dad missed the wedding. My siblings and I worked hard to produce a wonderful wedding, mourn our parents’ absence, and make space for our continued worry about Mom’s health.
A week later, on Dec. 13, a public tragedy: A shooter killed two students and wounded nine others at Brown University. The shooting happened on a Saturday, but because of a scheduled school event, in the aftermath, students of mine were locked down on campus for several hours. The next week, law enforcement agents were canvassing the area near both Brown and my school, looking for suspects. For safety, my school was canceled for a week.
I was out of town on that Saturday, in the neurological ICU with Mom and family members. My phone started blowing up with alerts from work about the lockdown and updates from friends and colleagues in town. What was going on at work? At my home? And even with my mom?
The next day, my mother’s condition worsened. My siblings and I gathered again, warned that matters were dire. At the same time, in the hospital cafeteria, news programs showed my school along with Brown as the manhunt continued. It was all overwhelming and confusing.
On hard days, I’d riffle through the box and read a handful of thank-you notes.
I soon had to go back to work despite my mother’s condition. Some days, teaching was a relief in its normality; other days, it was a burden. I had little choice about working because I had used much of my paid time off during my mother’s first hospitalization. The new job meant I had limited options for family medical leave.
So, I worked while my family group chat blew up with health updates on my hospitalized mother. What’s more, I was in school with worried kids, attending meetings about updated safety procedures and hearing details of the lockdown. I had to at last face the fact that deadly violence could happen in my workplace. A shooting took place around the block. It might have happened in my school.
I found myself developing a ritual. On hard days, I’d riffle through the box and read a handful of thank-you notes. Thinking back to students from my past and reading their expressions of gratitude was incredibly grounding in a time that was anything but.
One student from my old school wrote me a thank-you note that spreads over three folds of a card. This winter, as my mom gradually made progress, I found myself rereading one section. My student wrote, “I hope that one day, I’ll make someone feel the way you made me feel; seen, supported, and capable of becoming something extraordinary.” It stops me in my tracks every time I read it.
Another note that looms large came from when I taught international students at a boarding school. One of my secret favorite students that year was Korean. At the end of the school year, I received a note from her mother—in Korean. On the flip side, my student had translated her mother’s message into English and added a thank-you note of her own. When I read the notes now, I think how my work made an impact on a woman I would never meet nor could even communicate with directly.
Teaching is a profession, and over the years, there have been times when I’ve been really “locked in,” as my students would say. The praise and gratitude tend to be there then, or at least you are in state to remember it. But because professions play out over a lifetime, sometimes you aren’t locked in. That’s OK. Sometimes, you keep your job, you do your best, and you take care of yourself. The praise, the gratitude, even the connection might seem scarce then. But it is still there and it still matters.
New teachers, I hope you never live or work near a school shooting. I hope your families are well forever, and important life events happen as you dream they might. I hope when you need time away, you can take it easily. But you might not be so lucky. And because we are in a caring profession, and you are giving the care, it might be hard to remember the thanks when you need them the most.
So, as you round the corner of the end of the school year, let me suggest one simple thing: Keep the thank-you notes you get. Build yourself an emotional safety net. Your midcareer self will thank you.
