He said, “Mr. Moio, I have something that I would like you to have.” Without hesitating, he handed me an old, leather-bound book with an embossed title reading, “English Poems.” I thanked the student and opened the front cover to discover that the book was published in 1902. Explaining to my student that the book was more than 100 years old, I thanked him again and told him that I could never take such a valuable possession away from him.

“No, really, it was my grandmother’s,” he said, hands in the air in protest of my attempt to return the volume, “I told her how much you like poetry and she gave it to me and told me that she wanted you to have it to thank you for helping me in Language Arts.” —David Moio —A Nice Little Story to Cap off EL312 (DavidMoio)

A wonderful teaching anecdote, from a student of mine who is about my age (with a bigger family to support).

It’s stories like this that remind us why we love to teach.