As you enter your classroom each day, remember what a lasting impact you have on your students, and how far that impact can spread. Perhaps this letter of tribute from one student will remind you that yours is not just a job. It is far more important than that. Every word of encourgement you speak, every decision you make, every student you touch will help determine the direction of their young lives. This tribute to Beth Roush says it best.

Beth Roush was a teacher. A very special teacher. She died of cancer on January 20, 2005. This note was received on January 31. Her husband, Bernie Roush, was kind enough to share this inspiring letter that he received from one of her students.

You don't know me, but Mrs. Roush was my fifth grade teacher at Brookside Elementary School more than 25 years ago. As a hyperactive kid who was bored with the regular curriculum, I was always in trouble, and I spent more time sitting outside the principal's office than I did in class. That is, until I entered Mrs. Roush's accelerated 5th grade classroom. Believe it or not, that year changed my life. Mrs. Roush showed me how to channel that energy into productivity. She shot my self esteem through the roof and made me love school. In her classroom, I wasn't the "bad" kid anymore. I was "good." I was "smart," I was "special," I was "somebody." Mrs. Roush was one of those rare teachers who knew how to make a kid feel special. She recognized the value of every child in her classroom. Each and every child in her class knew he was loved. Kids left Mrs. Roush's 5th grade class with wings.

It was Mrs. Roush who made me want to teach. Like her, I wanted to help the "bad" kids realize that they were "good" kids. After graduating from Sam Houston with two teaching certificates, I went on to teach English in the Peace Corps in the former Soviet Union. I returned home for a master's in special education at UTEP and taught the "bad" kids for several years, hopefully passing on the wings that Mrs. Roush gave me. I am no longer teaching, but have been back in the Ukraine for the last several years leading an organization that is focused on education, giving people the tools they need to become a democratic society…giving them wings.

I am deeply saddened that I was never able to stop by Mrs. Roush's classroom to tell her how deeply she touched my life, how much I owed her. However, I know that one day I will see her again. And when I do, I know that her wings will be special for having taught so many others how to fly.

My prayers and deepest sympathies are with you.

Timothy Pylate (Kiev, Ukraine)

tim@kiev.us

With gratitude to Bernie Roush, for sharing

A PRAYER FOR THE CHILDREN
from Web English Teacher

We pray for the children
who sneak popsicles before supper,
who erase holes in math workbooks,
who can never find their shoes.
And we pray for those
who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,
who can't bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers,
who never "counted potatoes,"
who are born in places where we wouldn't be caught dead,
who never go to the circus,
who live in an X-rated world.
We pray for children
who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,
who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.
And we pray for those
who never get dessert,
who have no safe blanket to drag behind them,
who watch their parents watch them die,
who can't find any bread to steal,
who don't have any rooms to clean up,
whose pictures aren't on anybody's dresser,
whose monsters are real.
We pray for children
who spend all their allowance before Tuesday,
who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,
who like ghost stories,
who shove dirty clothes under the bed,
who never rinse out the tub,
who get visits from the tooth fairy,
who don't like to be kissed in front of the carpool,
who squirm in church and scream in the phone,
whose tears we sometimes laugh at and
whose smiles can make us cry.
And we pray for those
whose nightmares come in the daytime,
who will eat anything,
who have never seen a dentist,
who aren't spoiled by anybody,
who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,
who live and move, but have no being.
We pray for children
who want to be carried and for those who must,
who we never give up on
and for those who don't get a second chance.
For those we smother and . . .
for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it.