Who Inspired You?...

September and the return to school never fail to remind me of the wonderful people who inspired me to become the helper I am today. Some were family, some friends, some therapists, some famous persons I would never meet. But most were the teachers who wove a golden thread through the tapestry my life from kindergarten through graduate school. Each of them in-spired, or breathed into me, the desire to learn and then to support the learning of others.

Miss McIntosh, my third grade teacher, taught me the importance of empathy, warmth and compassion in creating an emotionally safe space for learning. Barry McDell, my highschool English and Journalism teacher, taught me that a painfully shy teenager could do more than I ever dreamed possible - even edit the school yearbook! And Dr Selma Wassermann and Lin Langley showed me that respectful teacher-student interactions are at the core of all good teaching. They demonstrated again and again that content matters less than the learning experience - that the medium truly is the message.

Without these deeply human and caring mentors, I could never have become the teacher I am today and I will be forever grateful.

What about you? Who inspired you to become the helper you are today? How did they do that? What did they say? What did they do? Perhaps you could share your story of inspiration here so it can, in turn, inspire others?

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