When I start to think of whom I would most like to give thanks for in my life, a lot of the people that came up immediately were family and teachers. Now, in my mind there’s not such a great difference between these two because your family are kind of like your first teachers – they’re the ones who start to show you how the world works, and in my case both of my parents are actual teachers. A lot of what these teachers have given me over the years- be they my family, or my actual teachers – is more than just knowledge, or grades, or the ability to sign my name in cursive (because to be honest, at this point most of us just scribble it, don’t we?). No, the biggest thing I am grateful for is my love of books, and of reading, and of writing.
I was lucky enough to grow up in a house of readers. My mother always has at least one book on her bedside table, and my dad usually has a pile too, although he gets through them much slower than she does. There are bookshelves in our living room, in our dining room, in all the bedrooms, and in the basement. I grew up surrounded by books, and quickly started developing my own collection. When I was in first grade I noticed that my mother seemed to be able to read a lot faster than I could, so my friends and I started doing speed-reading contests during “quiet time” at school. We would see who could get through more letters in the beginner’s dictionary within a set amount of time. Sure enough, I was reading faster than my mother within a few years time. I devoured books, and my teachers encouraged it.
I had a second grade teacher who required us to write short, paragraph-long stories every week using a list of vocabulary words, and it was doing those assignments that I first began to type on a computer. My third grade teacher challenged us to read a certain number of books over the summer – I don’t actually remember how many it was at this point, but I’m pretty sure I read about triple that amount. Those of us who actually completed the challenge, and turned in a list of the books we had read, were treated to lunch and a trip to the science museum on a Saturday during the fall of our 4th grade year. In fifth grade, with my teacher’s permission, I would stay in from recess and alphabetize the classroom library for fun, because I preferred the quiet to my screaming and running peers, and this way my friends and I could play card games or read our own books. All of these early teachers encouraged me in my outside reading, and in writing – both things that still help provide me with some sanity when I’m feeling stressed.
So in honor of Thanksgiving this year, I would like to say that I am thankful for my parents, for my sister, for Mrs. Zimmerman, Miss Quatrimoni, and for Ms. Lundell. And I am also thankful for the librarians of my Faneuil Branch library in Boston, and all of the amazing teachers I have had, from middle school up into my junior year here at Scripps. I can’t name you all, and I also cannot thank you enough, but you have had a great impact on me.