A Letter To A Teacher

Samuel J. Haynor sat to the side of the raised amphitheater in Radcliffe Yard surrounded by a small circle of friends. It was about 1 p.m., and they were rushing to stuff envelopes with blank cards and small slips of paper.

"To your teacher..." read the 1,200 slips of paper that needed to be placed under just as many chairs by 3 p.m.

Haynor, a 2010 graduate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education's International Education Policy Program, was one of the student speakers for the school's Class Day ceremony yesterday.

While his speech had been planned for about a month, at 4 a.m. yesterday—less than 12 hours before he had to give the speech—he decided to rewrite it.

"That moment was a month ago," Haynor said about his original speech, which he had submitted to the University about a month prior. He said wanted to capture the current moment. This moment would involve 1,200 cards.

Underneath each seat of the amphitheater, Haynor and his friends and family diligently placed a stuffed envelope, complete with stationery and instructions.

"1. Write a letter on card to any teacher in life" was the first step.

It was Haynor's one request: show love to a previous teacher.

"Love is knowledge," Haynor said. "The only way you can love something is to know it."

His audience was then instructed either to fill out the envelope with a known teacher's address or to "write facts that will help us reach them" on the reverse of the slip of paper. Letters placed in the "impromptu 'mailbox' in front of Gutman Library sometime between now and Friday afternoon" will be stamped and delivered to the teachers, by mail, or any means possible, according to the paper distributed to the audience.

At the end of the ceremony, a man stopped Haynor to give him his addressed card. It would be the first of many.

Photo by Xi Yu/The Harvard Crimson.