After an excruciating class with 4a, though, and a less-than-stellar class with 4c, I had class 3b/b — undoubtedly my favorite group in the whole school. I wrote on the board “respectful,” “hard-working,” and “polite” and had three students look these up. I told them, “There are some students and some classes who are not respectful, hard-working, or polite.” Some of them started to get big-eyed, like Ela and Dorota, but I continued, “But you are not one of them,” and they started to smile. “I would like to thank you for being such respectful, hard-working, and polite students.” I didn’t say it, but I wish I’d added something like, “You make me really love my job, and it’s because of classes like yours that I came back to Lipnica.”