One day a teacher asked her students to list the names of other students in the room on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name.
One day in an english class, Miss Siz asked her students to cut some A4 paper into 19 similar-sized pieces and write the name of their classmates on each paper.
Then she told them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down.
Miss Siz told her students to write the nicest thing about their classmates on the back of the paper and fold them up.
It took the remainder of the class period to finish their assignment, and as the students left the room, each one handed the papers.
The students took their time and some even make jokes while writing. "I'm watching you", said a student while thinking of the nice thing to write on his paper. This had cracked a laughter in the class =). At the end of the class, the students handed in their papers to Miss Siz. Having few more minutes before the period ends, and with the request from the student themselves, Miss Siz picked few papers randomly and read the contents out loud. Somehow it brought smiles to the whole class.
That Saturday, the teacher wrote down the name of each student on a seperate sheet of paper, and listed what everyone else had said about that individual.
In her own time, Miss Siz arranged all the pieces of paper according to the names and put them into envelopes with the particular students names on it.
On Monday she gave each student his or her list. Before long, the entire class was smiling. "Really?" she heard whispered. "I never knew that I meant anything to anyone!" and "I didn't know others liked me so much", were most of the comments.
On the next class, Miss Siz gave each student his or her envelopes. Before long, the entire class was smiling. Some even laugh. Everyone was happy and cheerful. The atmosphere in the class was very positive.
No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. She never knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents, but it didn't matter. The exercise had accomplish its purpose. The students were happy with themselves and one another. That group of students moved on.
The students never discussed about their papers in class again. Little did Miss Siz know that some of her students did discuss about the papers with their bestfriends. However, it doesn't matter to Miss Ika as long as everyone was happy.
Several years later, one of the students was killed in Vietnam and his teacher attended the funeral of that special student. She had never seen a serviceman in military coffin before. He looked so handsome, so mature.
Several years later, all the students are now pursuing their studies in medicine in different geographical area, with million miles seperating them apart. And of course, nobody was killed so I'm not writing anything further.
The church was packed with his friends. One by one those who loved him took a alst walk by the coffin. The teacher was the last one to bless the coffin.
As she stood there, one of the soldiers who acted as pallbearer came up to her. "Were you Mark's teacher?" he asked. She nodded: "Yes". Then he said : "Mark talked about you a lot".
After the funeral, most of Mark's former classmates went together to a luncheon. Mark's mother and father were there, obviously waiting to speak with his teacher.
"We want to show you something", his father said, taking a wallet out of his pocket. "They found this on Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it."
Opening the billfold, he carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded and refolded many times. The teacher knew without looking that the papers were the ones on which she had listed all the good things each of Mark's classmates had said about him.
"Thank you so much for doing that", Mark's mother said. "As you can see, Mark treasured it."
All of Mark's former classmates started to gather around. Charlie smiled rather sheepishly and said,"I still have my list. It is in the top drawer of my desk at home."
Chuck's wife said, Chuck asked me to put his in our wedding album."
"I have mine too", Marilyn said. "It's in my diary."
Then Vicki, another classmate, reached into her pocketbook, took out her wallet and showed her worn and frazzled list to the group. "I carry this with me all the times," Vicku said and without batting and eyelash, she continued, "I think we all saved our lists.
Yep. I still have my envelope in the drawer, together with my other 'harta karun'.
That's when the teacher finally sat down and cried. She cried for Mark and for all his friends who would never see him again.
The density of people in society is so thick that we forget that life will end one day. And we dont know when that one day will be.
So please, tell the people you love and care for, that they are speacial and important. Tell them, before it is too late.
And one way to accomplish this is : forward this message on. If you do not send it, you will have, once again passed up the wonderful opportunity to do something nice and beautiful. But it's up to U to fwd this one.
Normally I hate forwards messages, but I can't resist this one.=)
castle at the tyne mouth