The Pivotal Moment

I attended a seminar yesterday in Vincennes where the speaker illustrated the importance of educators in our lives. He asked one question that made me stop…and think. I want to pass it along.

He said there was a moment in his troubled early life….in high school…when a teacher took him aside and told him he had a gift for writing. He said that was a pivotal moment that changed the course of his life. A light went off in my aging brain. That is the same moment in my life.

I was a jock. I only lived for Friday night football and basketball games. My plan was to become an air traffic controller. Like I have the patience for that. They would have put me in a rubber room by the age of 30 if I had followed through on that career path.

Anyway…an English teacher took me aside after class one day and said….”Dreith, you have a talent. You can write. Stop clowning around. It’s a gift….use it.”

He made me think.

That spring I walked into the weekly newspaper and asked for a part-time job, which I got. That led to a full-time writing job, then a radio news job….then I was hired to teach radio….and my education career followed.

The point is….what would have happened if that high school teacher had not taken the time to grab me by the arm? He made a huge difference in my life.

I’d likely be in forced-retirement after lining up a 737 for final approach through the Gateway Arch.

Educators are remarkably important. They have the ability to change the course of their student’s lives with only a few words. I remembered my English teacher when I got the chance to run a classroom. I was a teacher for 15 years.

It was the most important job I ever had.