Thank-you 5th Graders...

For the past two years I have been a volunteer in Ms. Scotta's 5th grade class in the Mission District in San Francisco.

10-year old kids ask the most fascinating questions. My favorite came from a little hispanic kid who asked, 'Mr. Braniff, if the universe blew up would God still be alive?' You have to be sharp to keep up with these kids, let me tell you. My response was to answer his question with a question. 'Well, what if God created 10 universes and only one of them blew up, would he still be alive then?' 'Hmmm' he said and that was the end of that.

I just received a packet of letters from the '09 class and want to share some of the excerpts from their letters to me. I have quoted the excerpts exactly as they were written to me, bad spelling, bad grammer and all. Two of the kids spoke no english at the beginning of their 5th grade. One of them was Roxane from France, the other Muthana from Yeman. They speak english now, which speaks volumes about the kind of teacher Ms. Liz Scotta is. All the letters start out, 'Dear Mr. Braniff'.

'I think that you are an amazing and fun student teacher. You helped us a lot on every subject and you especially spend your time on comming to fieldtrips. When you came to some of the field trips you were always taking picures of us. Ms. Scotta told us that you are an excellent photographer and when she told us that you are were going to give us a dvd with pictures, videos, and music. I thought that it was the most special gift I ever had. When Ms. Scotta show us the dvd I was almost crying. Again thank you for this very special gift. I don't know if you remember but I am from France and I remembered that you were helping me at pronouncing number in english.' Roxane D.

'thank you for the pictures and I like all the fleacher marin headling. thank for make a dvd for us pictures. I like watercolors and I like the boats.' Muthana

'When we needed you you were like always there. I remmeber when we went to the moma museum I was in your group. I really miss you and friends miss you too. Thanks for being a good phothographer.' Paola H.

'First, I want to tell you thank you for helping Ms. Scotta with the students, and reading with us. Also, thank you for taking our halloween pictures, and our first 5th grade photographers. Next, I appreciate you and Ms. Scotta for having us improved our writing process, and my mathe skills.' Also, helping us do algebra, and fraction and even decimals, and percents. In conclusion I hope u could come back, and visit our school, and class again.' Tynesha D.

'Thank you 4 everything u did 4 us all year and u were a awsome photagrapher. It was a blast being with u in all the field trips. I really liked the Dvd u made 4 us it made me kinda like bursting out of sadness and crying.' Antonio Q.

'Thank you for being our class photographer and our class helper. We mostly liked that you took pictures of memories of our fifth grade year. I hope I have a teacher just like you in middle school.' Michael D.

'Thank you for giving us all your love to all the students I realy aprishiate that. Ms. Scotta chowed the students and me all the videos that you had done. That was so nice from you Mr. Braniff. I remember we went to the exploratorium and we so the eye of an cow and it was dicusting I really didn't like it because it was wird too.' Leslie P.

'Thank you for been whit us all the time and for been taking us photo and for been helping us and go whit us all the field trip and corect us no say bad words because there alot of them that are saying bad word in the school and Thank you for been reading whit us and been hyelping all the time and some times I didn't go whit you because I stay at home.' Anderson H.

'Thanks for being such a great volunteer. And I also wanna thank you for being our class photographer and for reading with us. In halloween I liked the costume you were wearing It was really funny when you pressed a button and water squirted out of the flower. When you came to our field trips it was funner than usual. The best field trip you were with us was Slide Ranch because you took pictures of us milking goat except me I did not want to milk one because it felt pretty weird.'

Volunteering the past two years has been a wonderful and rewarding experience for me. Sometimes it was frustrating. And sometimes when I was finished with my weekly four hour commitment I wanted to head to the nearest bar for a stiff drink! Thank you Liz for letting me be a volunteer in your classroom. And special thanks and gratitude goes to all of the students I have worked with over the past two years. You're the greatest!