Teachers: A Higher Calling

September is here, football is in full swing, schools are in session and teachers are back in the classroom. This is a time for many new beginnings. Every football team is optimistic, every coach is pessimistic, no student has flunked a test, and there's a promise for cooler weather. However, the greatest of new beginnings are those influenced by teachers. That, in itself makes the profession a "higher calling" in my book.

Teachers have such profound impact on kids both positive and unfortunately negative. Yet it is such an under-appreciated group. It is a job so many people think they can do but so few can really do well. Today, they are saddled with so many non-education tasks one wonders when they ever get around to teaching sometimes.

Before my time on the Community Board is done I want to say a huge THANK YOU to all teachers! Just for fun I listed the last names of all my teachers from first grade through graduate school. I think I got them all but a few in college (hey it was the seventies). The point is they all have a part in building people, including me. They are so important that they may not remember our names but we sure remember most of them.

I particularly appreciate the inscription in my high school yearbook by my science teacher that prompted my decision to go to college and to major in science. Up to that point I was willing to pursue only that which I knew I could do. She led me to seek things beyond my immediate grasp.

Teachers are people and people sometimes fail. It seems too many teachers that fail these days somehow forgot that theirs is truly a higher calling. Thank you teachers.