The Right Words At The Right Time

Over a year ago I learned that Marlo Thomas was looking for essays describing situations where someone was given just the right advice at some pivotal moment. I submitted an essay and, frankly, forgot all about it. Last summer I got word that my essay had been selected for inclusion in "The I received my advance copy (with a lovely personal note from Marlo Thomas!) a week or so ago and so far I have read about two thirds of the essays. Some of them are very sad and make me feel very thankful to have lived a basically happy and successful life. Some are truly inspiring, describing the overcoming of huge obstacles. Some remind me that my words could be the right ones for someone else. And some are amusing, but no less inspiring for bringing a smile.
The profits from the sale of the book go to support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. TN. Marlo's father, Danny Thomas, founded the hospital in 1962 and, as an extra incentive, my cousins Brenda Schulman and Peter Murray are both Associate Members of the St. Jude faculty..
I am posting my essay, but I urge you to purchase the book. You can find it or order it at any bookstore or you can go to the Right Words website for more information. You can even write your own essay and maybe your words will be the right ones for the next volume!

Passing The Test

Ever since I was a child I never wanted to be anything but a teacher. Even in seventh grade, when the class was assigned a “What I want to Be When I Grow up” essay, I wrote about teaching.
So when I graduated from Columbia Teachers College years later, I was thrilled that my lifelong dream was about to become a reality. However, when I first got my New York City teaching license, I was not immediately assigned a permanent position. Instead, I was sent to fill a vacancy – mid-semester – in a program that was being covered by a different substitute teacher every day.
Not the easiest way to start a teaching career
Despite the fact that my teaching license was in French, I was in charge of a program that consisted of English, social studies and remedial reading classes. On top of that my training hadn’t provided any practical experience working with students in a classroom setting. And while the senior staff was friendly, they had no time to sit down and help me deal with the situations that all new teachers encounter.
Inside the classroom things were even more daunting. Because the students had seen a different teacher every day, the first challenge I had was gaining their trust. Also, because of my almost purely academic training, I was having a tough time handling classroom discipline. In addition to all of this, I was struggling to make up the time I had missed at the beginning of the school year. I was definitely stressed.
When school break rolled around, I decided to go home to Massachusetts to visit my family. I looked forward to seeing my father, who had always been a wonderful influence on my life, particularly in the ways he encouraged me to broaden my mind. When I was younger, he liked to take me to a museum in the afternoon, and then once we got home play classical music and ask me which pieces of music reminded me of which paintings. He was also someone I could always go to for advice.
So I told him how I felt.
“I’m exhausted and frustrated and worried,” I said. “My dream is turning out to be a nightmare. I’ve wanted to be a teacher for as long as I can remember, and now I feel like a total failure.”
My father looked at me with the same warmth and wisdom I remembered from my childhood, and then asked me one question:
“When do you feel the worst – in the morning when you get up to face a new day at school, or at the end of the when you get home?”
I thought for a moment and said, “At the end of the day. The mornings are okay.”
“Then you’ll be just fine,” he said with a big smile. “You’re still learning the job and you’re not doing as well as you’d like. Keep at it and you’ll be terrific. But if you ever get to the place where the mornings are the bad part, that’s when you’ll know you’re in the wrong line of work.”
My father was absolutely right. As hard as it was for me during that first difficult year, I never woke up dreading the day ahead. This would remain true for that entire year – and 35 more. (And all at the same school!)
I passed my father’s question along to many new teachers, whenever they came to me with the same frustrations I once felt. Almost without exceptions, those who answered “morning” soon packed up their lesson plans and headed off to other careers. But those who answered “end of the day” turned out to be the teachers we all remember, the ones who came to school loaded up with bundles of props and supplies – and a healthy dose of magic.
These are the teachers who can’t get into the classroom fast enough each morning.
It’s safe to say their students probably feel the same way.