It might be easy to blame teachers for what’s wrong with American education. Open up the latest Nation’s Report Card and you’ll see what I mean. But I blame one teacher for saving my life.
35 years ago, I had decided to commit suicide—until a teacher stopped me in the hall, asked how I was doing, and told me they were happy to see me. That teacher, my guardian angel, doesn’t know it, but that simple moment was a miracle that saved my life.
Too many doubt educators like that one, and too many more leave perhaps the most noble profession in the world because of the doubters and detractors. But from the moment a student walks through the front door until a student boards a bus in the afternoon, the day is filled with beauty and small miracles.
