For 16 years, Hilton Head grads have gotten letters from someone unexpected: Themselves
Who were your best friends when you were 13 years old?
Who did you have a crush on?
What’d you think high school would be like at that time?
You probably don’t remember, but thousands of high school graduates know the answers to those questions because they’ve read them in their own words.
Students in Patricia Drane’s 8th grade classes at Hilton Head Middle School participate in an annual tradition where they write letters to their future selves.
But it’s not just any assignment, because Drane sends the letters back to students the year they graduate from high school.
“A lot of students forget they wrote it,” Drane said. “I get a lot of ‘I can’t believe I said that!’”
Drane has been collecting and sending letters for 21 years, and what she and her students learn from themselves each year reminds them of what a special time high school is in young peoples’ lives.
How she does it
Drane started assigning the letters to students when she began teaching in Arizona.
In early May, she sits down with her classes and asks them to “write a letter about now.” She tells them to write about their friends, what school is like and what’s going on in their world.
Then, she asks them to write about their futures.
She asks them to guess what high school will be like and what they hope to be doing after they graduate.
Most importantly, Drane never reads the letters.
“What they write is between them and their future self,” she said.
She collects the assignment in sealed envelopes.
Around the time the current 8th grade students start to write, Drane pops open her Rubbermaid bin at home and mails the letters for that year’s graduating class. She aims to get them in students’ hands a few weeks before graduation.
Over the years, Drane has gotten about 50 envelopes returned because students move away. But, in a place like Hilton Head, someone who knows them is never far away.
Still, letters from an 8th grade student to their future self can bring a certain amount of heartbreak.
“I have had some parents contact me, say something has happened to their child and it may not be the best for them to read it,” she said. “In that case, I pass the letter onto their parents.”
In other cases, Drane has learned of former students’ deaths when their letters get returned or their parents reach out.
“It’s very emotional,” she said. “I struggle with how they will take the letter, but I hope they look at it as a reflection of who they are and how far they’ve come during such a pivotal point in their lives.”
Looking forward
For this year’s group of 8th graders, the letters serve as a sort of time capsule of what it’s like to be in school during the coronavirus pandemic — details they won’t necessarily remember when they graduate in 2025.
“I told them this year to be really specific,” Drane said. “Five years from now, a lot of this might be forgotten.”
While some students and teachers end the year hoping to forget some of the details of two school years marred by the pandemic, Drane’s class letter project will preserve the nuance of what it’s like to be 13 years old when the world changes around you.
Each letter Drane sends is sealed with a message:
“To my former student:
You wrote this letter to your future self when you were in the 8th grade. Since then, a lot has changed in the world and probably in your life. I wish you all the best!”
