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BROMWELL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL (214)
2500 East
Fourth Avenue,
80206-4214
(Columbine Street at East Fourth Avenue)

Telephone:
(303) 388-5969
Fax: (720) 424-9355
E-mail: Bromwell@dpsk12.org

Mr. Jonathan Wolfer, Principal

Letter to the Class of 2000

Dear Continuating Fifth Graders:

Mrs. Haller and Miss Meyer were the Kindergarten teachers then, and Mr. Matchett was the principal. That was how it was when we started here at Bromwell, six years ago. But then Mrs. Haller retired, and so did Mr. Matchett, and Miss Meyer went to Slavens Elementary... so I get to say that I’m the one member of the Bromwell faculty who has known you the longest. I began by volunteering in the classroom for an hour a week, and a half-day, and then before the end of your Kindergarten year I’d had so much meaningful fun that I decided I would become a teacher.

So when other students complain about me, I guess I’ll just tell them it’s your fault! Because in many ways you’ve made me the teacher that I am. That’s really true of all teachers everywhere. Teachers “mold” and “shape” their students, sure, but they are molded and shaped by their students just as much, and sometimes more. That may be especially true of you kids and me.

Surely we share many of the same memories. Do you remember the wooden dinosaur bones that we dug up from the sand in the Manley Park playground? Or our reenactments of the Underground Railroad, and how you arrived in “Canada” and celebrated with popsicles? How about our second grade Shakespeare performance? Or this year’s murder mystery? Along with these memories that are so colorful, I recall other events that were smaller in scale but just as powerful - moments with individual students that were marked by surprising insights or by deep feeling, or by silliness that still makes me smile.

As the teacher (sort of...) who has known you (well, most of you...) for the longest time (kind of...) I feel that I can speak for the rest of the Bromwell staff, past and present: we will cherish these memories, and keep them for you. We’ll keep the memories of shared events and the memories of private moments, the comforting memories and the challenging memories, the happy and the sad memories. Okay, I admit it, we might forget a few things! But we’ll also remember things that you’ll forget, as you grow older and find your lives becoming more and more complicated.

In fact, as many people grow older, they realize that important clues about their lives lie in the past, in childhood events and experiences. So, I’m thinking that in about twenty years, you may want to stop by the office of Doctor O’Connor, or you may want to make an appointment to see Professor Oglesby, or you may want to place a transatlantic phone call to Rawlinson’s Academy for Juggling and Yoga. Or you may want to check with me. If I have anything to say about it, I’ll be found at Manley Park, still hiding dinosaur bones in the sand.

Of course, you can also check in with us next September and tell us all about middle school. I’m already starting to miss you. I will keep trying to become a teacher who is worthy of all the time you put into me... and given any chance, I will challenge you to grow on up to become adults who are worthy of the children I have known so well for these six years. A lot of people fail when it comes to that particular challenge - for that matter, you may be struggling with it even now - but I think you can do it. Remember those kids who escaped the slave-catchers and earned their popsicles? The ones who learned all of Shakespeare’s best lines? They could do anything!

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