I Want to be Remembered

In this post, Susanne Farrell Smith writes and remembers the words of her second grade students.  Susanne’s blog, In Search of Memory, chronicles her attempts “to excavate lost childhood memories.”

In a slow but steady return to teaching, I’m having fun digging through my old files. Unearthed today in the literacy folder, this list (formatted in fancy font for our bulletin board) of ways that my second-grade boys finished the sentence, “I want to be remembered…”

I want to be remembered …

For not making any mistakes in my first piano recital.

For my artwork. 

For helping my team win the Cup. 

For being a messy tie boy. 

For all the goals I blocked at Field Day. 

For making it to the silver badge in France.

For being able to hit a baseball really far. 

For helping the poor every day. 

For my drawings.

For giving someone on the street $5. 

For sitting on the puck from an opponent and helping win the game in hockey. 

For saving my team when we were losing.

For getting all the math challenges right in the Math Olympics. 

For being a great swimmer.

For helping to keep peace.

For being kind and playing with my classmates. 

Susanne concludes:  “Funny, I remember each and every one of them, now in eighth grade, for these things (among a kabillion others). I remember the academic successes, sports triumphs. I remember very very well the kindness and the pride in the arts. And I remember that tie. That ice-cream-dipped, glue-smeared, always-open tie worn by a boy utterly enamored with the world.”

Special thanks to my friend Jack Hoblitzell for connecting me with Susanne’s blog.