Blog post: Senior letter 2013
Response:
This post, to me, was magical. I would have given anything for a high school teacher to have done that for me and I cannot wait to write letters to my own seniors one day. While he may complain that his writing was rushed, I think it was perfect. It spoke to my high school self, venturing off into university to seek out knowledge in the only subject I ever enjoyed. I wish somebody had given me his advice though, to live in the moment and to just enjoy learning things and knowing things. I always saw my degree as a path I had to go down to get where I wanted to be and having that mindset probably caused me to miss out on a lot of opportunities. I became immersed in the “work hard, play later” lifestyle and probably didn’t get enough joy out of the content and the learning. Things changed when I got into PDP. I found myself talking about the things I loved and was learning about teaching with other PDP students. I found myself buying books on assessment and differentiation because I just wanted to know everything that I could about them. Now I can totally relate to everything that Sam Shah is telling his seniors. I absolutely love this idea and I love his words of advice and I will definitely keep them in the back of my mind as I continue on my own personal learning journey. Sometimes you just need to take a step back and smell the roses!
n+1 
The good news – better to take that step back and smell the roses now, than never to have taken that step at all. Sam’s message is powerful, and I’m glad you found to be magical, and to realize that you too can do the same for your future learners. 2.5/2.5