Answers always start as questions

Shortly after I became Smoky Mountain Living’s managing editor, I also took a teaching job at the local community college. I struggle to find the words to express how much it meant to me. My students all were at the lowest end of the spectrum—some graduated high school, some simply earned GEDs, some were 40 or older and laid off so had returned to school for lack of other options. 

It had been a foregone conclusion I would go to college since conception. I was in a program for academically gifted students and took advanced placement classes in high school. I’d graduated from Chapel Hill and was working on my master’s in addition to being managing editor and teaching. On paper, my students were my antithesis. In reality, they became my personal projects, my challenges, my loves. 

It was my sole (and soul) purpose not to teach them to love English, but to see its relevance in their lives and futures. I didn’t need them to recite Shakespeare. I needed them to be able to fill out a job application.

So I did what needed to be done—I made the subject matter applicable. The school is known for its wildlife and forestry programs, so I brought in the N.C. Wildlife Commission’s division chief, a program graduate, in full uniform to speak with me about how English and communication skills played a part in his day-to-day duties; about how accurate and clear descriptions could make or break a case; about how written and verbal testimony could lead to conviction; about how orders to his officers needed to be understood. I read them John Muir. I read them Bill Bryson.

I also read them David Sedaris—with all the curse words—because they didn’t know “English” could be like that.

I made my tests hard and expected the world of them, and when they did not do well, I did not yell. They were used to yelling. What they were not used to was someone being disappointed in them and telling them that they were indeed capable of doing better. But I told them that in the end, it did not matter to me what grade they made. I would get paid regardless, and that if they did not want to work hard enough to pass the class, I simply would see them again next semester and perhaps the semester after that. Without passing my class, they would not be allowed to move on to core level courses and thus would not be able to take the classes they actually wanted to take. All in all, it was up to them. They could do it—if they wanted to do it. And I would help them as much as I could.

I’m certain I broke rules. 

But I didn’t care because my methods worked.

For all my expectations and journal assignments with two-point deductions for spelling and grammar and tests with more than 50 questions administered in a 50-minute class, my students passed the departmental exam and I earned their respect and admiration. The guys who would rather spend any and every day out in the woods than in an English class decided I was their favorite teacher. When a giant snake visited campus as part of a wildlife program course, my students who were in the class wanted to bring the snake to me to show off—a flattering if not terrifying prospect. Whenever I’d run into a previous semester’s students in the community, they always would tell me they missed me. No, every day in the classroom wasn’t filled with hugs and sunshine. Some days were nothing but subject-verb agreement, pronouns and individual bookwork. But each day I felt like I was doing something that mattered.  

One student dropped out after I left teaching. Granted there are always a million reasons why such things happen and some of them are valid. From my students I gained the perspective that my life’s complications were relatively simple. I had deadlines to meet for Smoky Mountain Living. She had custody battles for her siblings. I had a basement with a retained moisture problem. He had discovered his father was racist and was grappling with his feelings that his father was wrong. 

So whenever I’d see my former student working at the gas station up the road, I didn’t push the school issue. Instead I simply was kind and always made a point to acknowledge her and spend an extra minute or two talking with her. She’d always ask about my work and my travels. 

Over the summer, I’d stopped in for a soda and some chips. She rang up my items and we chatted until she got busy with other customers. When I got to my car, it occurred to me that I really ought give her a copy of the latest magazine. I snagged a copy from the backseat, went back in, simply handed the magazine over the register and said, “Here! This is for you.” Her smile was genuine.

She was working at the gas station again one night this fall when I stopped by on my way home from work. It had been a long day. I was feeling somewhat low. She asked how things were going and I told her that I was leaving Smoky Mountain Living for other opportunities. She glanced sideways out the door and smiled before looking back at me. “You should go back to school! I did,” she said. 

I only was able to get out a single word of praise—”Good!”—before my throat closed up, and I scurried out to my car where, safely enclosed in the steel and the dark and the rain, I burst into tears. I cried as I drove. I cried in the garage. I cried in the kitchen.

I cried not because I was sad but because I was so overwhelmed to receive such a meaningful gift—exactly when I needed it—and to think that maybe, just maybe, I nurtured it a tiny bit.

The absolute best things in life are those on which we take a risk and invest ourselves even though we do not know how they will play out. Certainty is safe and rather useless for bringing richness to life’s experiences. Answers do not simply present themselves without giving them a chance to first exist as questions. As I leave Smoky Mountain Living, I am asking for and ready to receive whatever comes next.  

Dear readers, thank you for all that you too have meant.