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tell you something else?” I added.
    “Absolutely.”
    I paused for a moment. “Sometime in the next few weeks you’ll have such a bad day that you will wonder why you even went into
     this profession. Expect it. We all have those days.”
    Her eyes got big. “Even
you
?”
    “Absolutely. But the funny thing is that every time I have a really bad day, it’s soon followed by a wonderful one that reminds
     me of why I became a teacher in the first place.” Carrie listened closely. “In all my years of teaching, it has never failed.
     Never.”
    Her face broke into a smile. “I’ll try to remember that.”
    I turned and looked around the room. Her students’ self-portraits filled one board. Their autobiographies were up on another.
     Giant tempera-painted sunflowers mounted on black paper hung over the sink. “It looks great in here. You’re ahead of me. I
     don’t have all my kids’ work up yet.”
    “Thanks,” Carrie said. Then she put her elbows on a stack of papers, rested her chin in her hands, and looked out at the desks.
     “Phil, I
think
everything is going well, but I’m not sure that I’m… I’m not sure that I’m reaching them.”
    “Ahh,” I said, nodding my head. “Vanilla wafers.”
    “Huh?”
    “Vanilla wafers,” I mused aloud. “When I was a new teacher, I had the same thought. I wondered if I was making an impact.
     Then one morning I walked to the front of the room and found a Ziploc bag with three vanilla wafers resting on my desk. I
     figured someone had dropped it on the floor and the custodian picked it up. I held up the bag and asked if anyone had lost
     them. No one answered. Then a soft voice in the first row whispered, ‘They’re for you.’”
    A smile crossed Carrie’s face.
    “
That
was my sign,” I said, holding up one finger.
    My eyes shifted to the wall behind her. Taped on the whiteboard was a colored-pencil drawing of a woman with rosy cheeks,
     long eyelashes, and a Marlo Thomas hairdo. A bright sun wearing glasses smiled in the corner. A rainbow swooped through the
     words
To Miss Baxter.
    I pointed to the drawing. “Is that from one of your students?”
    Carrie turned and looked at it. “Yes.”
    “There’s your sign,” I said with a smile. “You’re doing great.”

LETTERS
    T hey say that the art of letter writing is dying. Well, this simply is not true. Ask any elementary school teacher if you don’t
     believe me. Teachers help kids write friendly letters all the time — letters to pen pals, cards for Grandparent’s Day, thank-yous
     to our field trip drivers. When a child writes a letter that is really cute, sometimes I’ll pull in his mom and share it.
     Last year after we wrote valentines to the veterans, I showed Martin’s mom. Martin wrote, “Dear Vet, Happy Veteran’s Day.
     Thanks for taking care of my cat. She’s all better now.”
    Writing a friendly letter is not easy for a third grader. There is
so
much to think about — which words to capitalize, where to put the commas, what to indent, and whether to sign off with
Sincerely, Love,
or
From.
It’s a lot for a child to wrap his head around. But letter writing isn’t just difficult for the kids. It’s not easy to teach,
     either.
    This year on the morning of Back to School Night, I handed out paper to each child. Then I drew a giant piece of paper with
     lines and margins on the whiteboard.
    “Okay, everyone,” I began, “today we are going to start writing letters to our parents welcoming them to Back to School Night.
     We’ll leave them out on our desks so that your moms and dads will see them when they walk into the classroom tonight.”
    Dylan looked worried. “
On
our desks or
in
our desks?”
    “On
top,
” I answered.
    He sighed loudly. “Good.”
    I continued the lesson. “Now boys and girls, there are five parts to a friendly letter. The first part is the
Date.
” I tapped the large paper that I had drawn on the board and pointed to the place for the date.