It is back-to-school time. 

Clean slate. Sharpened pencils. Keen minds. Beating hearts.

Across our community, backpacks are being filled, classrooms prepared, schedules printed and first-day clothes selected. Teachers are putting names to faces. Students are figuring out where they belong. Parents are adjusting household routines to the familiar rhythms of another school year. It is a wondrous time of year. Every August the future holds hope, optimism and excitement.

But witnessing another school year launch, gives me pause. Today, I am thinking less about the teachers our students are about to meet and more about the teachers from my past. Teachers who formed me, teachers who selflessly cared about my learning, who were patient in the slow understanding I exhibited. 

I am thinking about Mrs. Reaume from 4th grade who broke the news of JFK’s assassination thereby introducing our class to what a national tragedy was. Thank you, Mr. Wilson, for helping me overcome the fear of public speaking. Mr. Sanzenbacher, I was never able to express my gratitude for introducing me to creative writing. Ms. Gartz, thank you for demonstrating what it means to be a dedicated teacher. And the list goes on…

You too? The teachers in your life who made a difference are many I would wager.  Think out loud and name them and why they played a role in showing you the right path. Maybe it was an elementary teacher who somehow made a shy child feel noticed. A high school English teacher who introduced us to a book we still think about. A coach who demanded more from us than we thought we had. A college professor who challenged something we had always assumed to be true. 

Decades pass and the gratitude remains; the lessons are now ones perhaps you teach. How little of the curriculum we remember. 

I cannot imagine many adults sitting around the dinner table reminiscing fondly about the worksheet they completed on a gray October afternoon in seventh grade. Few of us remember the questions on a particular test or what grade we received on an assignment long ago.

But the people, we remember their names, what they said and did. They are not forgotten. We remember the teacher who wrote something encouraging across the top of a paper. We remember someone laughing with us. We remember being called upon when we desperately hoped to remain invisible. We remember a teacher discovering something in us before we had discovered it ourselves.

Their memory gives us a glow about ourselves. Even the challenging teachers, the ones who demanded we strive forward. We remember the one who would not accept our halfhearted effort. And sometimes the lesson was not about algebra or history or biology. No, it was more about showing up, finishing what we started, learning the art of listening attentively, defending an idea, admitting when we were wrong, getting up and starting again after we failed. 

One of the best lessons for me was, learning that there are people in the world who see things differently than I do.

In my classes at Crowder, they are filled to the max. And with all those faces the first goal is to recognize them. Learn their names and make certain they are seen and heard. Its not all about knowledge transfer. Much of a student’s success comes from a feeling of belonging to something bigger than themselves. That somehow the gift of learning should always be for the greater good, not simply self-elevation. School, or maybe better said, education does that. When they learn the importance of being seen they will repeat that good will habit in their life.

And teachers aren’t the only people who teach us. Parents teach. Grandparents teach. Coaches teach. Pastors teach. Employers and coworkers teach. Friends teach. Sometimes strangers teach us something without ever knowing they did. We learn from each other, in the classroom and after the final bell rings.

Perhaps that is why the beginning of a school year still carries such possibility. Somewhere in our community this August, a student is about to walk into a classroom and meet someone he or she will remember 40 years from now.

Neither of them knows it yet.

The teacher probably won’t recognize the moment when it happens. There will be no music playing in the background, no dramatic announcement, no indication that this particular conversation matters more than hundreds of others. It may be nothing more than a question. A comment written in the margin. A book recommendation. An expectation that says, “I think you can do better than this.” Or simply an adult paying attention at precisely the moment a young person needs someone to pay attention.

So as another school year begins, perhaps those of us who haven’t carried a backpack in many years have a little homework of our own. Remember the people who taught you. Better yet, if you are fortunate enough that one of them is still around, tell them. Watch them light up. You just gave back a little of what they gave you.

That’s an easy A — for the greater good.

Terry Held is an English instructor at Crowder College, Cassville. The views expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Crowder College. He would appreciate hearing what you think. He can be reached at [email protected].