I am grateful.

For finding my passion early. I have wanted to be a teacher for as long as I can remember. As a child I would use small books to make desks for my stuffed animals and cut out tiny sheets of paper for them to complete their assignments. I would stand before them and teach them, and they always listened, never looked bored. For that

I am grateful.

For teacher-parents. Both of my parents were educators with long careers in private and public education. They brought their passion for teaching to raising their children. We traveled widely all our lives, and my parents would find teachable moments every chance they had. Dad would stop at most historical markers he saw and read them to us. He would tell us more about the area if he knew anything. Once, when we took a long trip across the country, every time we drove across a state line, Mom would read from a big book of states that she purchased just for the trip. When I attended the school where Dad was principal, I remember how he arranged for the older students to attend special opera and light opera performances. Mom bought little paperback art books for us. There was a whole set with artists from all different eras represented. I still have a few of these books over 50 years later.

Oh, so much more I remember, but I will just say,

I am grateful.

For a marvelous education. I attended public and private schools and universities in different areas of the country. Dad was in the military for much of my childhood, and we moved frequently after he left, so I went to school in Alabama, Georgia, Maryland, Illinois, Oklahoma, and North Carolina. The wide variety of educational experiences taught me adaptability and widened my perspectives. At every school, I can remember at least one teacher, and usually many more, who was exceptional, who had a passion for teaching. Mrs. McBride, Mrs. Lewis, Mr. Fisher, Mr. Hill, Mrs. Riskind, Dr. Walker, Dr. Heit, and his siblings Brunhilda and Karl, Dr. Epperson, with his deep, comforting voice, and dear Mrs. Hovelman, who taught humanities and expository writing and said to a shy high school senior who was going to register for study hall her last semester, “How about being my assistant for the semester?” For all of these marvelous teachers…

I am grateful.

For a long career doing what I love. I began my teaching career formally in 1983, but my education provided me so many wonderful teaching opportunities. While studying in Tulsa, Oklahoma during the oil boom, I tutored students in the writing center in undergraduate school and through that job was hired to teach English to two elderly Iranian ladies who only spoke Persian. A Cambodian couple woh served at the Chinese restaurant where I worked hired me to tutor them in English when they found out I was studying to be an English teacher.

Upon graduation, I was hired to teach English and German at a private Christian school in Aliquippa, PA. I loved much of my teaching there and had many wonderful experiences, the best was meeting and falling in love with the man I have been married to for almost 32 years, but I didn’t make enough money on a private school teacher’s salary to afford to live, so I headed back home to attend Auburn University.

While working on my second degree in English Education at Auburn, I did my student teaching at the same high school where my mother was a librarian and taught under the tutelage of another great teacher, Mrs. Claire Fields. It was rough being a student teacher, but it did not deter me from wanting to teach.

After graduating from Auburn, I taught English and German for Floyd County Schools in Rome, Georgia, then married and moved to Canton, Ohio. Even though I didn’t formally teach in Ohio, I got a position as a job trainer for Goodwill Industries and continued to use my teaching skills helping differently-abled people develop soft skills and learn various trades.

When we moved to North Carolina, and I couldn’t get a teaching position right away, I went back to school, receiving a graduate assistantship at Western Carolina University. I tutored in the writing center for the first semester and received the Kim L. Brown Award for Excellence in Tutoring. For the following two semesters, I taught freshmen English. My last semester, I received the Theodore L. Huguelet Award for Outstanding Graduate Assistant, which was an honor made even more special because Dr. Huguelet, who taught Milton, had been one of my favorite professors. I graduated summa cum laude and was inducted into the teaching honor society of Phi Kappa Phi. For one year following graduation, I taught tenth-grade English at a local high school. I won’t lie. That was a difficult year. Nevertheless, for all of my early teaching career and higher education

I am grateful.

For my current position. Since 1995, I have taught English at a community college south of Asheville in Western North Carolina. For six years I was an adjunct, which was perfect as I had plenty of time to be with my daughter while she was little but not have a big gap in my career. My experience teaching most English courses offered at my college and receiving positive student evaluations led to me being offered the full-time position that I continue to enjoy. For this

I am grateful.

For all the College’s employees and stakeholders. One thing that the pandemic has made abundantly clear is that everyone who works at a college is in some sense an educator. I am thankful to have the support of so many who truly care about the work they do. We don’t always agree, but we must remember that we all have different work to do, and that it is all important. We can disagree and still work together for the good of our students.

I am grateful.

For our students. Expressing my gratitude to them exceeds the time I have this Thanksgiving morning. My daughter is on her way to help us prepare our Thanksgiving Feast, and my little family deserves some gratitude heaped on them this day. Because for them, for my life as teacher, daughter, wife, mother,

I am eternally grateful.