To Mrs. Powell

It has been about 13 years since I last saw you, when I left your 5th grade class and made my way to middle school. Please note that I did not preface this letter with "dear" as one commonly would. I didn't think it suitable as the term suggests endearment in some way.

I'm writing to you at the age of 23 (shy of 24 by just a few weeks) to notify you of the fact that while I am still around as you might have expected, I'm not in prison, working as a stripper, a parent with a baby-daddy, or any other stereotype you likely envisioned while you had unexplained distaste for me at the age of 10. I am actually doing fairly well; I graduated high school with highest honors, attended university and achieved a degree in English, and have been working administrative executive jobs since my graduation.

While I don't really desire to go into much more detail than the basics, I at least wanted to ensure you of the fact that a) I am NOT a pathological liar as you described me to my own mother, b) I was a perfectly happy, normal, intelligent 10 year old when you knew me, and your class was essentially the only one where I ever "got into trouble."  I never once received detention in middle school, kept a 3.0 in college, never drank or did drugs and have since kept my nose clean as an adult.  I have never even been pulled over once by the police or received a traffic ticket (just a parking ticket once).

In short, I WAS A GOOD KID, and everything else was made up in your head about whatever it was you thought I was doing, conspiring to, or otherwise being devilish in some way.  When you told everyone to write you a letter as to a good reason as to why we wanted to change our seats (because you were just too damn lazy to come up with another seating chart for the rest of the year), I was being 100% legitimate when I said I wanted to move to the middle table so I could be closer to the board and actually hear what you had to say, rather than your explanation of me wanting to sit closer to my best friend (why the HELL wouldn't you just move ALL of us then?!).  Oh, and thanks to you, I still and forever will dislike math and question my ability in it. The 0% homework assignments you gave me for attempting each problem but making the same mistake on each one I also found quite unacceptable, as was the practice of not allowing me to retry them, saying "only one copy per student."

Here's hopes that you have found your calling in perhaps another field, where you don't taint others, especially children (or their parents) into believing they are psychopathic monsters when you are actually just a very lazy teacher who would rather blame a child's failure on their own "inability" rather then your own lack of solid teaching.

Thanks again for making 5th grade a nightmare!

Sincerely,
Jenny