Father Who Taught English for Decades Writes Advice Letter to Daughter Starting Teacher Training

A father who has spent his career teaching secondary school English is writing to his daughter, who has enrolled in teacher training, with advice on what the job actually demands. The letter, signed "Love, Dad," opens by noting that she played teacher as a child with her younger sister, and says he inspired her to follow him into teaching English.

On classroom technique, he tells her that pedagogy and classroom management are learned together, and that finding her own approach will take years. "You will spend five years working out the best way to teach," he writes, adding that after another five she will still need to change her methods for each group of students. He tells her to ignore teachers who claim there is only one way to teach, and to be ready to drop an approach that is not working for a particular set of students.

The letter sets clear expectations for behavior in the room. Students are teenagers and he is an adult, he writes, so good manners are required. If a student does not show respect, he advises pausing, staying calm, explaining the consequences of what happened, and following through. "If you don't, their respect for you will vanish," he says. He adds that a teacher can be friendly but is not a student's friend, and that every decision, whether discipline or lesson design, needs a reason behind it.

He frames the teacher's role as supporting the student's own story, writing that a teacher is "a character actor there to facilitate the protagonist's plot." The job, he says, is to build a place where students can explore, push back, and test ideas, which requires steady respect for each one. He also tells her to ask colleagues for help rather than sitting through difficult classes alone, and says he still seeks advice from other teachers.

Empathy is what separates getting through the job from doing it well, according to the letter. He asks her to watch students as they enter and interact so she can see who they are, and to treat them with care because what is happening in their lives is often unknown. He also tells her to show students their work has improved by pointing to the work itself rather than a grade, and to celebrate when they succeed.

He also takes aim at the CAO, the college admissions process, which he says has turned second-level education into a six-year competition and students into consumers. He frames this as something her empathy and her belief in students can push back against. The letter closes by calling teaching a privilege, watching students mature from 12 to 18 before they leave, and a postscript asking her not to tell her mother she is his favorite.