A graduating high school senior’s tribute to her music teacherBy Katelyn Scherping
[Editor’s Note: It was our luck one evening last month to be present at Ms. Scherping’s reading of this tribute to a teacher at Osseo Senior High, in Osseo, Minnesota. Otherwise we would not have known to ask her permission to share it here, or be able to enjoy the honor of doing so.]
Where do I start?
Do I start with how you’ve transformed my
rough screeching and scratching into music?
Do I start with how you inspire me every single day?
How passionate you are about what you love,
how you’ve reignited my own passion for my viola, for music?
Before you came, I simply went to orchestra class to have fun,
I didn’t care about practicing or improving my skill or making music.
But you inspired me to start caring,
to start practicing, to start working to become a better player,
to love music again.
Yet the fun didn’t disappear.
Each day is full of new experiences, lessons, and life.
I never know what the day is going to hold,
yet I know it’ll be better than the day before,
because you make it that way.
You make each day full of wonder.
Do I start with how much I admire you?
How you have a husband, a child, take night classes,
and have this job on top of everything else?
How you never let that slow you down or dampen your spirits,
how you come to class at 7:30 each morning,
jumping up and down on that podium,
waving your arms in excitement?
How determined you are to make us a better orchestra,
how hard you try to make it through each and every day with a positive attitude,
how hard you to try to make every day worth it for us,
how you put your own needs in the back seat and
make sure we’re the ones who are having the best experience we can have?
Do I start with saying how some of the best times I’ve experienced this year
have been in your classroom?
Even though I may not know where to start,
I know where to end.
For the orchestra and for me,
I want to say thank you.
Thank you for all you’ve done for this orchestra.
Thank you for all the work I’ve seen you do outside of class
that no one else knows about.
Thank you for caring about us.
Thank you for caring about me.
Even through all of my mistakes and days when I’m going crazy,
you’re always there to support and care for me.
Your compassionate heart has made more of a difference than you know,
on both my life and the lives of so many others.
I can’t even begin to express how grateful I am that you were
chosen to be our new orchestra teacher.
I’m not sure where I’d be today without you.
Thank you for being one of the best teachers I’ve ever had.
| Copyright © 2018 by Katelyn Scherping |
How absolutely fabulous for you to have taken the time to share this with us with such love and conviction. Thank YOU! Music and the pure love of it is the thread which holds all humans together in our universal tapestry. Music creates in every person a willingness to consider all things when they take the time to feel and listen to life and each other. She taught you the DNA structure or hand book for a full life. Bless you for your acknowledgements to your guide and inspiration.
ReplyDeleteDedicated teachers everywhere need the kind of recognition that Katelyn Scherping gave to one of hers, who happens to be my son's wife, Christa Elizabeth Dean, who has just completed her first year as Osseo Senior High School's Director of Orchestras. Ms. Scherping's tribute is a carefully crafted thank-you for the long list of things she considered Christa had done for her. Katelyn read it to Christa, who was standing beside her on the stage of the high school's auditorium on the night of the final concert of the year. My wife and I were sitting in the front row, which seemed to be the only row in the auditorium where any empty seats remained. Katelyn wasn't many lines into her reading when I started to think: this MUST appear on Moristotle & Co. Student tributes to special teachers – how many of those are there every year anyway? And Katelyn's seemed such a superb example.
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