Read The Last Teacher for Free Online

fingers gripped the pen as if it were a sword and she were fighting for her life. In a way, maybe she was.
     
    Dear Principal Wachowski,
    You may think it’s wrong to tell the students they can be anything they want. Some of their parents might even get upset and call you when I say such things to the kids. Make one thing clear, though: I will not stop telling my students that they can achieve anything they dream up in their young heads.
    Yes, the human population is steadily declining. And yes, unless the scientists make some miraculous discovery, which none of us expect to happen, the decline will continue until there are only a few people scattered around the world. And then, no one at all.
    However, that does not mean the students can’t be anything they want! It turns out I wanted to be a teacher when I was little. Can you believe that? A teacher! I didn’t want to be a teacher who won awards or a teacher who had a full class of kids every day. I just wanted to teach.
    So, if one of my students wants to be a hockey player when he grows up, he can sure as heck be a hockey player. I admit, the NHL won’t be around. My student will never win a Stanley Cup. But that doesn’t mean he can’t be a hockey player, of some sorts, all the same.
    If one of the girls in my class wants to become a lawyer, then she can do that! I’ll be the first to acknowledge the Supreme Court has already discussed disbanding and that some local courts have already begun to turn their lights off. But until the very last pockets of society break down, everyone will rely on people who can mediate differences.
    Which brings me to my larger point: accomplishments do not make a life; our actions each day are what define us. No young kid says he wants to win the Stanley Cup when he gets older. He simply says he wants to be a hockey player. Well, let him! And no kid says she wants to win a case in front of the Supreme Court. She merely tells her parents she wants to be a lawyer. Well, let her too!
    The world is changing. The human race is fading away. We all know this. But until the day I die I will continue to tell my kids that they can do anything they want as long as they keep trying and never give up. I will never tell them they can’t be anything they want.
    And if you don’t like it, you’ll just have to fire me and go without an English teacher.
    Sincerely,
    Ray Phillips
     
    It felt good to tell her principal how she felt. It felt even better to stand up for what she believed. But she wasn’t done.
    Next, she raced down the hallway so fast that if she were a student one of the other teachers would tell her to slow down unless she wanted detention. She jogged past one empty classroom after another.  Al Flannigan’s room was dark.  All the lights were off in Harry Rousner’s room as well.
    Maybe Eric Tates wouldn’t find a cure for what was causing the Blocks. But if he really wanted to be a scientist, then blasted, he would be a scientist. And whatever Kelly and Debbie aspired to be was achievable too, so long as they never gave up. That was what she should have been teaching all along. Not The Awakening . Not The Stranger . She was supposed to never let her students forget that they could do anything they wanted.
    “It’s a new day, class!” she shouted on her way into her room. A new day indeed. Throw the books out. Forget about anymore quizzes. From now on, she would do things a little differently.
    “You can be anything”—she said, then stopped.
    Her last three students must have left in the latest migration.  Her room, like all the others, was empty.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
     
     
    Chris graduated from Western Maryland College (McDaniel College). He currently lives outside Washington D.C. His dream is to write the same kind of stories that have inspired him over the years. His others novels have become Amazon Best Sellers and been featured on the Authors on the Air radio network.
     
     
     
    Did you love this short story?