Last Friday, I had the pleasure of being a clinician at a middle school band camp. The gig was through the Navy, which is a first for me. I normally do this on the civilian side, but it was fun to do it in uniform! Anyway, all the students wrote little notes for us, and I wanted to share some of them because it truly touched my heart. Sometimes it’s hard to recognize how I do with these things. I usually leave thinking, ‘I hope they learned something’, or ‘I hope I had an positive impact on them’. But this time, I have PROOF that I did leave an impression, and that is worth more to me than gold.

Seriously, I can’t even.

This is why I teach.