I don’t know what I was thinking when I wrote that letter at the beginning of the year.  I thought I wouldn’t be able to master the course work, or that I wouldn’t understand concepts.  How silly!  It might be due purely to your teaching tactics, but I feel like I’ve learned more in Physics than in any other class I’ve ever taken.  I truly feel like I’ve learned and not memorized.  Before this year, I don’t really think I knew what learning was.  Sure, I could remember formulas and plug in numbers, but what did it all mean?  What is the point of F=ma if I don’t know what it means?  What’s the point in memorizing anything if I don’t learn from it?

I think we as students become so accustomed to the way every other teacher teaches that we’ve just unlearned how to learn.  I think the way you teach physics makes it so much simpler.  I don’t think that any other classes learned any more than we did, but I think that their classes were harder.  They were harder to comprehend and harder to learn in.

The way you run your class is how all classes should be run.  It’s not about the teacher, it’s about learning, it’s about the students.  You tailor to the individual student without smothering them.  Even the small things, like not having to ask you to go to the bathroom, or not having those hideous overhead lights, really make a difference in the atmosphere of the classroom.  

Physics is a life altering course.  It’s how the world functions and how people found that out and how we can understand it further.  It really has been a pleasure being in your class this year.  I’ve learned a lot about physics, the world, and what school should really be like.  Thank you so much for everything.