GUEST COMMENTARY
Editor, There’s a Willie Nelson song with lyrics that begin, “My heroes have always been cowboys...” Even though I watched cowboys on television every single day when I ran home from elementary school, (Roy Rogers, The Lone Ranger) my heroes have always been teachers.
Until middle school, I didn’t even realize that teachers existed on the same plane as the rest of us. I imagined them living apart – like monks. I thought they lived in a private enclave, with stores to shop where they didn’t have to rub shoulders with us commoners, spending their hours away from the classroom in quiet contemplation and serious study.
It never occurred to me that they were like “the rest of us.” One tragic day, my mother refuted my misconception, much to my shock and disillusionment.
As the 2026-27 school year begins, I started thinking about all the valuable lessons I learned from my teachers, trying to figure out which ones served me best throughout my life. There are so many.
But silly as it sounds, what comes to mind is quite ordinary. It stands out because I use it every day: Vocabulary.
My fifth-grade teacher began the school year by handing out a list of 300 vocabulary words we would be required to know the definitions for by the end of the year. On a weekly basis, we were assigned a list of words to look up in the dictionary, write down their definitions and prepare to be tested every Friday.
This was too much like my real life, when I asked either of my parents to clue me in on the meaning of a word I had read. Their response was always the same, “Go look it up in the dictionary.” Truth be told, I came to kind of hate Mr. Webster.
It’d be so easy to just tell me the answer, but no-o-o-o. I now understand that when you look something up and/or write it down, guess what – you remember it.
As my fifth-grade school year concluded, against my will and better judgment, I had learned the definitions of all 300 vocabulary words. Not only has that knowledge served me well every day of my life, but now that I’m ancient and my sister sent me a LARGE TYPE, (because her eyesight is bad and she thinks mine is, too) gift subscription to Reader’s Digest, the first thing I do is flip to the vocabulary section at the back of the magazine and affirm that I am 10 for 10 for every single word. Every single month. Without exception. Of course, the words are all pretty lame, even for 5th graders.
To all the teachers out there, “Thank You.” Your job is much harder than it was when I was in school – when my teachers left the building at the same time as their students.
You put in countless extra hours after the last bell rings that nobody realizes, except your family. You are faced with stresses my teachers could not have even imagined. You are grossly underpaid, grossly undervalued and grossly underappreciated.
In spite of that, you show up every day and you teach anyway.
Why? Because you love kids and you love learning, and you want to pass that gift of knowledge on to your students. You did that for me. And regardless of what Mama said, I still think you are on a plane above the rest of us.
In fact, I still think you walk on water.
Welcome back to the most noble profession of them all — teaching.
Mary Ellen Walls is a Sisterdale resident.
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