We're planning a move across town this summer, so my wife Camille is looking for a new math teaching job over there. Tonight we were talking about letters of recommendation, including the idea of writing your own and asking someone to sign it. Then I offered to write it for her. So in honor of the move, the new job, and six years of marriage, here's my letter.
Editor's note: this is from an extremely biased source that plays it fast and loose with things like "history" and "the facts." Sweeping generalizations about the subject of this piece are presumed true, though supporting evidence may not be.
Revised editor's note: this is from an extremely reliable source that knows everything there is to know about things like "history" and "the facts." Sweeping generalizations about the subject of this piece are undoubtedly true, while supporting evidence is rock-solid. You should accept this as fact before you read on.
Once, there were teachers. They shared information. They modeled behavior intended to make that information useful.
And then, there was Camille. And the teachers rejoiced.
Camille is the best teacher in the whole world. She has been teaching math since before math existed. In fact, Camille invented most of the maths--two of the three, to be exact. (I can count them and describe them in terms of fractions because of her.). Her old pal Sir Isaac is to blame for the confusing one.
Camille is better at building rapport with students than anyone who has or will ever build rapport. She wrote the book on classroom management, and it's one sentence long: "Do what Mrs. Mikkelsen does" (Mikkelsen, 2015). Legend has it that she travelled back in time and taught Carl Rogers everything he knew about empathy and listening. Legend also has it that she time travelled back in time to teach the Egyptians how to build their pyramids (or at least the math part of it).
Any school would be lucky to have Camille even walk past, let alone actually agree to work there. Last time she started at a new school, property values in that school's neighborhood tripled overnight. So please do not pass up on the opportunity of a lifetime, nay, a millennium. Hire her and watch your students performance and morale improve by miles.
Thank you and congratulations on hiring the best ever,
MC EDM
