April 25, 2025 - after our lesson yesterday, a student handed me a folded piece of paper as she left the classroom. At first, I thought it was just trash. But when I opened it, I saw this message 😭🩷 the students are 1000% the best part of this job

@val This makes me so sad, and yet gives me a little bit of hope.

@cliffordbeshers I have even told my students that I will at least be staying in Bishkek! (for how long exactly, I don’t know yet.) But the girl who wrote this note is the same student who suggested I “buy a house” in this village, so it sounds like she is pretty attached 😂

@val Aww, that's lovely! I used to find it so sweet when students would draw me pictures, or write me nice messages on the whiteboard 😆 Once I was working on my birthday, and came in after lunch to find that the whole class had written me "happy birthday" messages on the board… that was nice

@jayeless that was very thoughtful of them 😊

@val Oh! That is so touching. I bet this makes all the hard work of being a teacher worth it.

@ArnoldHoogerwerf as a volunteer, my group of colleagues is constantly being told by our managers, “you are planting the seeds, but remember you may not see the fruits of your labor during your service”. That definitely also applies to teaching/education. Inspired by kind messages from my own students, I messaged my Latin teacher from high school last year to express my appreciation for giving fun and interesting lessons, so much that I even remember some lessons and games/activities he conducted to this day (and use them as a language teacher myself!)

@val that’s a great idea! Never thought of that myself.