Ken Derby
  • Home
  • About Me
  • All Star Stories
  • Author
    • Author Visits
    • Author Visits-Virtual
    • Authors Guild
    • Literacy Work In Turkmenistan >
      • 2010
      • 2011
      • 2012
      • 2013
    • Literary Agent
    • My Books >
      • Dracula: The Real Story
      • Harley P. Davidsun's Loony Bin
      • Invasion of the Stuffed Animals
      • Mischief of the Stuffed Animals
      • The Ghost Memoirs of Robert Falcon Scott
      • The Mystery of King Tutankhamun
      • The Top 10 Ways to Ruin the First Day of School
    • Projects >
      • Bloodstained Love
    • Reviews >
      • Dracula: The Real Story
      • Harley P. Davidsun's Loony Bin
      • The Top 10 Ways to Ruin the First Day of School
    • Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators
    • Top Ten Kids Store
  • Education Consultant
  • Educator
    • Class Projects
    • Literacy Work In Turkmenistan >
      • 2010
      • 2011
      • 2012
      • 2013
    • Thoughts About Education
    • Testimonials >
      • Colleague Testimonials
      • Parent Testimonials
      • Student Testimonials
      • Supervisor Testimonials
  • Honors
  • Photographer
  • Press
  • Contact Me
Student Testimonials

"Mr. Derby will trust you. He will make you want to learn a lot in a way that 
you do not want to miss a day of school. He is more than a teacher.”
—Adam Turi

“Hi Mr. Derby! Just wanted to let you know that 
you came up in conversation today. My boyfriend’s cousin is going to
be a grade 4 teacher this coming year,
and feeling a bit 
nervous about it all. I told him that grade 4 was one of the best years for me, and it was because I had the ‘coolest teacher ever,’ and that he’ll be just as special of a teacher to his students as you were to me 
(and so many others). I know it has been many years since I sat in your classroom, but although a lot has changed overtime, the fact 
that 
you played a role in my life never will. Thanks for the memories!”—Lindsay Dreger

“
You are the BEST TEACHER I EVER HAD! You are a funny, awesome, rocker dude, and maybe a little handsome, um .

 .
 .
 anyways

, a great author and a great monkey trainer. It was nice to have you as a teacher. Your students from next year will be very lucky to have you.”
—Sara Filip

“
We all thank you for everything!! When it comes to

learning, jokes, parties, private meetings, and more, we will always remember you in our hearts and brains. We’ll all miss being with you (especially me!) and I’m pretty 
sure a lot of the younger kids were begging me to be in your class next year and the year after that and the year after that. You were really 
nice and an awesome teacher this year for us.”
—Isabella Franco

“You are like a second father. I will miss you very much. I’ll remember to come up to you on Friday or tomorrow to give you a big hug.”—Isabella Anderson

“Thanks for teaching all that ‘
bath and skience

.’
You’re probably my favorite teacher in the world. I enjoyed spending my school year with my classmates and my teacher, you (aka

Head Gorilla)
. So thanks for being the best teacher and friend in the world. Have a great summer and ROCK ON!!!”—Jack F.

“
I was sitting in my bed this morning looking groggily out the window, home from school. As well as

I could with a fever, I ended up reflecting upon my life and how exactly 
I got to be sitting in this bed, in this bedroom, looking out this window. Then I got to wondering how exactly 
I arrived at thinking these thoughts (
and by this time I was as confused

as you probably are now)
, and I figured I might as well go back to the very 
day I was born and how my life progressed and changed me from there. After re-living several years of my hectic (and almost trivial) little life, I got to the part in the story where I had already successfully adapted to the scary environment of an international school – 

AISB, to be precise
. I remember vividly walking into my new 4th Grade classroom, nervously darting my eyes from corner to corner, trying desperately to make myself invisible. I had heard these terrible, terrible tales of an evil Cyclops-type giant residing

in this class. As I was scaring myself with gruesome stories of an insect-devouring boogieman

, I froze. There you were, sitting and relaxing on your chair. You stood up (and by God, were you tall) to greet your new students and I remember thinking (besides, ‘Didn’t Cyclops have only one eye?’), ‘eek!’ Now, throughout the year there were times when
I still wondered whether one of your eyes was indeed 
fake
, but I came to realize that you weren’t evil (
though the stories about your arthropod-oriented cuisine were very 
true). I realized that you were actually far from evil. You were just. Real. Your very unique

personality quite 
 perplexed
me, for I had always thought that 

all adults were in essence, 

the same. They were almost all fed up with life, most of them thinking, ‘
more than half of my life is over, so why not just impatiently wait until the other half finally comes to pass

?’
But then there are some uniquely different adults like yourself (really, how many adults are obsessed

with Fred Durst?)
who still retain

that excited spark of life in their eyes whenever they wake up in the morning. And so I guess it is because of your uniqueness (and, dare I say, oddness) that I came to respect you. And because of this respect, I took your urges for me to write to heart. Little did I know then how much this decision would help me throughout the years, especially through the turbulence of moving from school to school, the general confusion of growing up, and attempts
to carve out a creative space for myself amidst the pressures of academic writing. I wrote poems, short stories, lyrics… I found literature - its production as well as

its consumption - to be a constant comfort, all my own. So sitting on my bed, in my bedroom, looking out my window, I just 

thought I would say ‘thank you’ for inspiring me in that 4th Grade classroom, and for helping me discover the meaning, usefulness and pleasure of writing.”
—Naomi

“
Not to insinuate that you don’t have an excellent memory, but I doubt you’ll remember me. That’s okay - because I remember you. You were my 2nd Grade teacher at AISB .

 .
 .
in 1992. Wow - has it been 14 years? Yip, I really wouldn't blame you for forgetting the loud and probably somewhat obnoxious South African kid in class 2D. I just 

wanted to thank you for your open-mindedness and acceptance that each child is unique. It’s funny, you know, how kids can pick up things like that. Some teachers were the epitome of winter,
while others like you never stopped encouraging and inspiring.”
—Lynne-Marie Odendaal

“
I’m sure that u

won’t remember me, but i

thought of u

the other day and found ur

 web site

. u

were my 4th grade teacher in AISB. I’m doing my last year of college in Spain now, and i'm

moving to England next year to go to university. I think i

was a bit of 

trouble when i

was in ur

class but i’m

achieving well, and i

still remember many of the things u

taught me. Especially how to dissect a pigeon. i
really enjoyed ur

books when i

was in school and u

were an excellent teacher. Thank you for everything.”
—Joe Staniforth

“
Thank you so much for being such a good teacher. You were really funny

almost all the whole time, except when

we really had to get stuff finished. But that was also OK! I will really miss you, and I would be really happy

if you could be my teacher for the rest of my life. That would be COOL! I really 
like your book called The Top 10 Ways to Ruin the First Day of School. It rocks! I hope you keep on being such a good author. If you write a new children’s book, please let me know because maybe I can order it or something. I will never forget you. I will even tell my new friends in Italy that I had the coolest teacher ever in 4th grade.”
—O. S.

“Thank you for teaching us (5K) so so so so nicely and humorously. I think I learned a lot about reading and writing. (I think because you are an author that loves to read and write!) You are THE BEST TEACHER IN MY WHOLE LIFE!!!”—J. Y. C.

“
Well .

 .
 .
thank you for teaching me for the whole 4th grade school year. I really liked this year in your class - the CRAZY class! It was very funny

! It was the best year ever! You were the best, BEST TEACHER! I really loved it. So .

 .
 .
have a nice holiday and I hope to see you soon!!!”
—H. L.

“
I really enjoyed being in your class. You are a good person. I learned a lot from you. I like you because you are very 
friendly and very funny

and you made me feel good in your class. Hope to see you again. I will never forget you.”
—D. F.
​

Copyright © Ken Derby 2006 to Present

This website does not share personal information with third parties.
  • Home
  • About Me
  • All Star Stories
  • Author
    • Author Visits
    • Author Visits-Virtual
    • Authors Guild
    • Literacy Work In Turkmenistan >
      • 2010
      • 2011
      • 2012
      • 2013
    • Literary Agent
    • My Books >
      • Dracula: The Real Story
      • Harley P. Davidsun's Loony Bin
      • Invasion of the Stuffed Animals
      • Mischief of the Stuffed Animals
      • The Ghost Memoirs of Robert Falcon Scott
      • The Mystery of King Tutankhamun
      • The Top 10 Ways to Ruin the First Day of School
    • Projects >
      • Bloodstained Love
    • Reviews >
      • Dracula: The Real Story
      • Harley P. Davidsun's Loony Bin
      • The Top 10 Ways to Ruin the First Day of School
    • Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators
    • Top Ten Kids Store
  • Education Consultant
  • Educator
    • Class Projects
    • Literacy Work In Turkmenistan >
      • 2010
      • 2011
      • 2012
      • 2013
    • Thoughts About Education
    • Testimonials >
      • Colleague Testimonials
      • Parent Testimonials
      • Student Testimonials
      • Supervisor Testimonials
  • Honors
  • Photographer
  • Press
  • Contact Me