Teachers experience a very special type of closeness with their students. They spend 6 to 7 hours a day with the kids, which is often more than the parents can do. They also spend countless hours thinking about those students, planning for them, worrying about them.
I taught for nearly 30 years. I know how much teachers grow to love the kids who dominate their every waking hour.
A high school teacher in Colorado Springs recently found a way to show that love and devotion.
Brittni Darras is an English teacher at Rampart High School. AddictingInfo reports that the suicide rate in Colorado has risen significantly in the past year, and like many teachers, Darras has been touched by these tragedies.
As she posted on Facebook, Darras found out recently that she had come very close to losing one of her precious kids.
During parent teacher conferences two months ago, one Mom arrived with a list of all of her daughter’s teachers. Each name had either “yes” or “no” written next to it. The Mom explained to Darras that her daughter had looked over the list and had indicated which of her teachers could be trusted with her story. Darras’ name had a “yes”, so the woman began to explain why her daughter had been out of school.
In Darras’ own words:
“Her daughter- a friendly, intelligent, beautiful, driven, young woman- not only planned to commit suicide, but was in the act of doing so when the police got a Safe 2 Tell report, broke in, and stopped her. She had deleted her social media accounts and left goodbye letters; she was ready to leave the world.”
Darras wrote in her post that both she and the young woman’s mother sat together and cried as the story unfolded. Moved and saddened by the situation, Darras asked the Mom how she could help, and wondered if she might write a letter to her student in the hospital. The Mom agreed, and so Darras wrote a letter of love and support to her student.
Learning later that the letter had had a profound impact on the girl, Darras decided that she didn’t want to wait for her students to fall into despair before she told them how much they meant to her. She decided to write a letter to each of the kids. All 130 of them.
Every letter was handwritten, and each contained details about what makes that student special and unique. In each letter Darras explained why she cares so much for that student.
It took this devoted teacher two months to complete her letters, but there is no doubt that their effect will last a lifetime.
You can watch an interview with Brittni Darras on the video below.
Featured image via KOAA Screengrab.
Another inspiring teacher can be seen here:
