LETTERS: TRIBUTES FOR TEACHERS

To the editor:

(The following letter is for elementary-school teachers in the Cape Girardeau School District.)

Dear Cape elementary teachers:

Greetings for American Education Week from the students of Schultz Middle School.

As an English project for this special week, our seventh graders wrote favorite-teacher essays. Though I cannot send copies to every one of you, we wanted you to know.

The papers were written about teachers from every school -- Alma Schrader, Clippard, Franklin, Jefferson, May Greene and Washington -- and about teachers from every grade level from kindergarten to sixth grade to special subjects.

The essays were carefully penned on special paper in neat manuscript and cursive, as you have taught them.

And the writings were filled with their compliments of you.

They mentioned math races, cluster projects, chance tickets, geodesic domes, hot-air balloons, "zines," Science Center visits and Jefferson City trips. They remembered the stars for good work, baby chicks in class, energy beans, candy-bar rewards, pity parties and ghosts in the closet.

Essay after essay recalled that you were kind, strict, cheerful, understanding, energetic, funny and fair.

The students said you listened to them, made them laugh with your jokes, believed in them, rewarded their hard work, made them feel special and cared about their dreams.

You played guitar for them on Fridays, always wore purple, taught them what a virtue is, told them to go beyond the limits, threw a shoe or two and kept them all in line "while not going insane."

"Two thumbs up," they said. "I will always remember for the rest of my life."

Especially during American Education Week, the students wanted to let you know.

PAT HECKERT, English teacher

Schultz Middle School

Cape Girardeau