One of the better teachers of my high school career was my Sophomore and Senior year English teacher Mr. Benjamin Pratt. He was the one of the youngest teachers that I had in high school, he was only 27, and I was in the first class he taught, the first year he taught. We, the students, were usually pretty hard on new teachers, young or old, but Mr. Pratt was really cool. He was able to connect on a deeper level with all of his students, not just me. More than our teacher, he was also our friend. Not only was Mr. Pratt a great friend to all of us, but he was also a great teacher. He gave me confidence in my writing ability when I had never even given writing a second thought.
The first assignment he gave the class was to write a paper about what America meant to me. I wrote the paper and turned it in, like I would have with any assignment. We had not really had to write papers in my high school yet, although I had written a few, so I was still very green. I was a little nervous, but I was confident I would at least pass with a C. When Mr. Pratt handed back the papers, I was shocked to see that I had earned an A on it. There was nothing but praise written on it and he read it out loud in class. I was really surprised to say the least, because when you do not think you excel at something, and someone tells you that you do, it is a shock. It forced me to re-evaluate my abilities, and it opened up options for my future that I had never considered before. I had always been afraid of writing, but Mr. Pratt changed that forever. He touched my life in a way that he will never know, and this is my way of telling him.
The year that I graduated from high school was the last year he taught at my school, Pine Crest. He moved to New York to finish grad school and to finish writing the book he was working on. It is a shame that I do not know how to reach him, because he was definitely an influence on my life, and I think that it would be nice to let him know that he did make a difference as a teacher. After all, being a teacher is about making a difference on the lives that you touch, and he did just that.
-- Cristina Sierra, Florida Atlantic University