Strem Talks

Dear Eren, I am writing this the year after your death and it is so incredibly hard but there are some things you need to do for the amazing people you encounter.  My father was enamored with my impressions and stories of you because you were the strangest, most wonderful student I possibly ever had.  I sit here writing this thinking how in the heck I ended up with someone so incredibly individual and fantastic.  I called you Penguin.  Here's why... I remember you coming to my classroom in 6th grade and you were this tiny little Turkish boy.  You had the strangest accent I've ever heard.  Still to this day I am the only one who can mimic you (that I know of) because even your sister had no idea where you got that accent.  You raised your hand in my classroom and asked me, very seriously, "Miss?  Why did the penguins take over Antarctica?"  It was the strangest question I had been asked in middle school (which was saying something).  ...

Today I witnessed my first 7th grade class from 2012, graduating from high school.  This was not my usual Commencement, because these kids were the ones who brought me into the world of teaching middle school.  It was a day that I was sure I would cry and show my emotions on my sleeve.  Surprisingly the sleeve was only unending happiness.  I had no tears to shed for these students moving forward, I had only sunshine running through my veins.  These were kids that I saw at the top of their angst and wonderful teenage development. They were hyperactive and crazy and rude and fantastical like a mythical creature. They made everything difficult for me at the beginning.  They inadvertently tortured me in their own way. However, coming to the end, I realized how much they changed my life and made me the best damn middle school teacher possible. When I started teaching, I was in charge of 10th and 11th grade.  I was then told that I would be transferred to ...