For many students, there’s a teacher that leaves a mark on you forever, whether for better or worse. Mr. Criss Uithoven, aka “Man of a Thousand Hats”, was one of those teachers for me.

I had him for a Computer Applications class during the COVID lockdown of my 7th grade year, where we learned to format and how to write professionally via stories, emails, or other such things. From one of those assignments is where I realized just how amazing my teacher is. 

Since my class could only see Mr. Uithoven through a screen, I was unsure what it would be like to have a teacher whose hand I couldn’t shake.

I was never confident in my work, always assuming that anything I wrote would make an English teacher dread grading my assignments, or that nobody understood what I was trying to say. However, Mr. Uithoven made me think otherwise.

Whenever I forced myself to ask for feedback, he always gave constructive criticism but then followed it up with praise that always seemed like the exact thing that needed to be heard at the time. 

The main example that always pops into my head is when he had my class write a short story that had to be at least four pages long for Halloween. My heart sank at that. I thought “Oh god no, I can’t write something that long. It’ll be terrible, I should’ve dropped this class, I’m wasting Mr. Uithoven’s efforts that should’ve been spent on a more talented writer.”

Obviously, the world did not end. I did not drop the class. I complained, whined, nearly cried from self inflicted struggle, but through it all I forced myself to write that story.

When Mr. Uithoven read it, he said that I “had amazing potential, and all that’s in your way now is your own opinion”. My own opinion. I never truly thought of it like that before, I’ve heard it time and time again but it wasn’t until that moment that I truly believed it.

Family, friends, commercials, and kind strangers: all people that’ll say the same script for every person that struggles with something. “Just think positively”, “Ignore the hate and focus on yourself”, etc. We’ve all heard the variations more times than we care to count. But in that single moment, through a screen of all things, I finally believed that a thing I made was something someone wanted to see more of.

Thank you, Mr. Uithoven. Your words had quite literally changed a part of me I didn’t realize was me. I am disappointed I never met you in person, but you’ll always be a part of my writing. 

Rest in peace.