In Remembrance: Rachel Held Evans

Before we get too far along, you should probably know what I’m all about. I was an educator for over 30 years – even I can’t believe it was that long or that I’m this old, but there it is. During my career I taught middle school (shudder at the thought) and high school English and was the school librarian for a middle and high school. I was a yearbook advisor and newspaper advisor. After leaving public education, which I walked away from and never looked back, I found that I did miss sharing books and ideas children and adults interested in a wide range of things. I found my place now at a local public library in the children’s library. So my experience has grown, and I can say that I have worked with children from birth through high school and from there through their adult years. I have read aloud to them, recommended books, acted as surrogate parent and counselor, befriended them, gone to their weddings and more of their funerals than should ever have happened. I’ve even taught children of the children I taught. If you are a teacher and find anything of use to you or your class, by all means help yourself. Pat Conroy had it right when he said, " “I developed the Great Teacher theory late in my freshman year. It was a cornerstone of the theory that great teachers had great personalities and that the greatest teachers had outrageous personalities. I did not like decorum or rectitude in a classroom; I preferred a highly oxygenated atmosphere, a climate of intemperance, rhetoric, and feverish melodrama. And I wanted my teachers to make me smart.” from Lords of Discipline View all posts by Lynne VS