Why Ms. Bailey will ALWAYS be my favorite teacher

Yesterday I was sitting out on the back porch I share with my duplex neighbors, eating dinner and shooting the breeze, and we got to talking about family, and how some families favor heavily while other families almost don't look alike at all.  And so, I went inside to grab a photo album and show them exactly how much I look like my dad.  I didn't find the picture I was looking for, which bummed me out a little, but I figured it was in with my stuff somewhere.  So, last night, I pulled out all my scrap books and pictures, looking for a couple of particular pictures.  I never found them, but came across something fantastic instead.

It's a letter from my Junior High teacher, Mrs. Bailey.  I was in an advanced program throughout elementary and Junior High that my school called the VANTAGE program.  Basically, there was a teacher each year who was trained to cultivate the growth of students who had tested "advanced" or "gifted and talented" in some IQ and standardized testing.  They put all of us in the same class and this teacher gave us more advanced reading, more difficult schoolwork, etc, to stimulate us in order to keep us from being bored out of our minds in class.

In Junior High, that class was expanded to include about fifteen kids, and from 6th - 8th grade, we had Mrs. Bailey for two class periods each day.  In sixth grade she taught us reading and world history, making it fun.  We made fairytale hats and went on an archaeological dig.  In seventh grade she taught reading and language arts.  We read Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, I believe, and composed our own poetry.  In eighth grade she taught us geography and language arts, tackling O Henry and Shakespeare again, A Midsummer Night's Dream, invented our own countries, establishing the government and writing legislation for it, as well as creating maps of said country.  (Amanda C. and I created Whopperland, and everything in our country was named after a candy or snack of some sort from Candy Corn Creek to Blue Razz Barrier Reef to M&M Mountains).  And we also did Model UN, the fantastic GTV, and tons of other things I'm sure I'm forgetting.

Although, I'll never forget Aundrea's Limmerick about Kermit the Frog:

Kermit the frog ate a fly
Then he used drugs to get high
Then he did choke
From the weed in his throat
Now to Kermit we say "Goodbye."

I fell in love with the English language, with composition and grammar, enjoyed the heck out of history, and got to read fantastic authors like Poe, Shakespeare, O Henry, Ray Bradbury (just to name a few) in Mrs. Bailey's class.  But the main reason Mrs. Bailey will always be my favorite teacher is because she loved us like her own kids...and she invested in us and cheered us on and challenged us to be BETTER.  She made us think, forced us out of the typical educational boxes, taught us more than statistics and facts and rules.  She fostered in us an ability and a drive to be creative, to be truthful about who we are, to be unapologetic about who we are, and to strive to be great.  I have never had another teacher do that for me, not in high school and not in college.  Nor have I ever had another teacher care for me and my fellow classmates in the same way Mrs. Bailey cared for us.  The proof of that is in this letter that she wrote us as we left her in 8th grade and went on to high school:
 

 So, Mrs. B, in case we haven't said it before -- or even if we have, it bears repeating -- thank you so much for pushing us when we needed to be pushed, challenging us when we needed to be challenged, and loving us even when we were getting on your last nerve.  We love you always, and we are truly better people for knowing you and being taught by you.