As a teacher you constantly ask yourself, Am I reaching my students?” Am I being an effective educator? Am I making learning fun? Do the students understand the concepts I’m teaching? Do the students even like me? Am I making any kind of impact on their lives?

I spent a lot of time during my second student teaching placement reflecting. It was an exciting time of year – I started just before Halloween and left just before Christmas. The students were anxious for the upcoming holidays. The snow was starting to fall. And there I was – a new teacher to contend with.

There was one student who worried me a bit. I’ll call him E. E was a very bright and articulate child, but school didn’t seem to interest him much. He was more concerned with football. Tom Brady and the New England Patriots to be exact. He loved Tom Brady, idolized him. On library day he always came back with a book about football or his favorite player or team. Months later my heart broke for him when the Giants won the Super Bowl. He was a cool kid. He didn’t like to participate in any of my silly dances or songs. He often seemed uninterested in whatever activity we were doing.

I soon began to followed his lead. When talking to him I tried to relate any new learning to football. I made math problems with a football theme. I studied Tom Brady. I watched the games. I was all football all the time with this kid. Still, was it working? I couldn’t be sure.

Then today, while waiting to check out at the grocery store, I looked up and saw E in front of me (shopping with his mom). A huge grin appeared on his face. “Hi!” he said. “Mom, this is one of my teachers.” I was melting. He remembered me! He was happy to see me.

We exchanged some small talk. “How’s your summer going? Are you playing a lot of football? Do you know who your teacher for next year will be?”

Just as he was about to exit the store he turned around. “Do you still have our Cloudy With a Chance of Meatball stories?” You could have knocked me over with a feather! He remembered those stories? He liked those stories?

The class had been studying a unit on weather. We spent a few weeks learning about and discussing the weather. The water cycle, tornados, hurricanes, types of clouds, monsoons, snow, blizzards. You name it. We spent hours outside making weather observations. We made our own barometers.

Then we read Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs – one of my favorite books. Students then had to choose their own food and weather occurrence — Raining With a Chance of Pizza, A Blizzard With a Chance of Cupcakes, etc. Using story maps the children authored and illustrated their own books. They loved it.

E did a wonderful job. His story was inventive and humorous, casting himself as the wisecracking meteorologist. He remained reserved during the process, and I couldn’t tell if E was truly interested in the project. Until today.

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Back when I was a kid anyone could be a substitute teacher. I’m sure the schools themselves would have preferred someone with a teaching degree or, at the very least, a formal education of some kind. However, it was a measure of just how little the profession was respected that not everyone who came into contact with kids in a learning-type of way–aside from the custodian, secretary and the cafeteria ladies–was qualified to do so.

My own 6th grade class suffered under the tyrannical rule of an occasional substitute I’ll call Constance. She was the mother of a fellow classmate/friend and though we endured her massive and unpredictable mood swings until the real teacher could come back, I know her daughter labored mightily under the desire for a giant trap door to open up just under her mother’s feet as she stood at the desk demanding quiet.

Standards were finally raised in our state to require library aides and teacher’s aides to have an Associates’ Degree and the teachers themselves were required do everything from taking competency tests to submitting gradebooks/lesson plans and objectives with plans for modifications for inspection and approval. We were observed and evaluated and counseled as to how best to meet the needs of low-performing kids who came from clueless families. Poverty. Violence. Layered generations with little interest in the educational system or concern about helping their child achieve more than family tradition would seem to dictate. Ahh yes! What method should we employ with children to counteract the 18 hours of daily exposure to neglect and ignorance with the paltry six hours per day kids spent in school?

Regardless of the flaming hoops teachers have had to jump through to receive their crappy paychecks every month and the lipservice and shallow promises that politicians routinely trot out on the campaign trail, educators are still the lowest paid degreed professionals on Planet Earth. Every year at orientation, teachers are sent out into the field like warriors with pep talks of their participation in “the noble profession” still ringing in their ears. “Noble” meaning: She/He who works for insufficient funds.

One of the problems is that people still approach teaching with a the idea that it’s just a job for women. A bunch of silly women who don’t really need to make a decent salary since that’s the “job of the husband” (Not my words. No death threats, please) And those without husbands–like me in 1982? We struggled along on the $13,000 per year (before taxes, Social Security and NEA dues). Can you say Poverty Level? We had to get jobs during the summer that usually went to teenagers or other young adults who hadn’t gone to college–just to pad the bank accounts. We were paid on the last Friday of every month, except in December when we were paid right before the holidays. One year it was December 18th. I didn’t get paid again until the last Friday of January. Try THAT one on for size.

I’m willing to admit that things are better than they used to be. Cost of living raises are grudgingly given. Politicians eventually have to make good on promises to increase pay, but the conditions under which teachers work are worse than ever. Plus buying a house and raising a family on a low salary is still incredibly difficult. If–as they claim– it’s one of the most important professional jobs in the world, then why aren’t we paying these people in accordance with that philosophy? I’m waiting for an answer.

Most of the teachers I know deserve to be paid well. No one should raise an eyebrow at their requests to be able to feed, clothe, shelter and educate their own children. But among those throngs of worthy professionals are the interlopers. The people–and here it’s mostly women–who become teachers because it was something “to fall back on”. Something to do to bring in a little extra money. A job to pursue because you can get off at 3:30 and–if you have a husband– summer is time off for a job well done…or even if you did it badly.

These are the people who anger me: the faux educators who get a last-minute teaching certificate so that they can HAVE A JOB. Everyone thinks teaching is something they can do. “Hey, I went to school…I can probably teach it.” That makes about as much sense as my saying that since I brush my teeth every day, I can probably be a dentist.

The interlopers infuriate me almost as much as the politicians and spineless administrators who expect perfection from their employees and give little in return but a damp handshake and a vague promise of more money down the road. These “posers” who take up the teaching profession for any reason except for the only one that counts: They really feel called to work with children. Unless that’s your reason, your services are not needed in my kid’s classroom. You want a little extra money? Go get a job working the cosmetics counter at Macy’s. You want something to fall back on? Wait tables or be a cashier in a bookstore. But don’t ask me to pretend you can help my kid find Taipei on a map. It just degrades us both.

Last year I was at the grocery checkout and I saw a man who turned out to be my middle son’s former school football coach. A classroom teacher and a fantastic coach. A father and grandfather who was now retired from the profession. He was sacking my groceries. I rest my case.

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It would appear in my mailbox about once a year, usually at Christmas, and sometimes more frequently, depending upon how busy things had been. A little white envelope in and amongst the daily bills, magazines and flyers. Plain and square– with meticulously typewritten lettering across the front and the university’s return address in the corner. Courtesy of Dr. Z. J. Kosztolnyik, Department of History. Somewhere in the maze of papers in my office, I have most of them.

The greeting was always old-world, like the man himself, I could almost imagine his courteous bow, his body hinged ever-so-slightly forward at the waist, whenever he shook your hand. His letters were just like his lectures in the classroom: Articulate. Soft-spoken. Passionate. Away from the lectern he always managed to speak of his projects and his work so manner-of-factly and then turn the conversaton over to inquire as to what was going on in your life. It wasn’t just a matter of good manners, although God knows he was the most polite human being I’ve ever met in my life. No, Dr. Kosztolnyik was truly interested.

I had signed up for a history session called “The Ancient World” and that morning I sat expectantly with a fresh spiral notebook that had a red cover and a fist full of No.2 pencils. Every chair was taken, though a good third of the students would drop the class after the first exam. In walked a thin, tallish man with old-style Derwood Kirby/Drew Carey (depending upon your generation) glasses and a brown suit. The sleeves were just slightly too short. He began speaking about something involving “trees” and I was writing just as fast as I could and trying to decipher what turned out to be a thick Hungarian accent. I found out two days later that he was pronouncing the number “three”…minus the “h”. He was reciting dates…from memory. By the end of the second week I was to discover that Dr. Kosztolnyik rarely–if ever–used notes. He delivered his lectures from memory–translating them from Hungarian as he went. I went on to sign up for two more of his classes and they were among the most challenging of any I’ve ever taken. 25 years later I still have every notebook and test from my time with him.

What ensued from that first day in his class lasted long after I had graduated and entered the working world. I was 18 years old the first time I was praised for my skill as a writer and I was 20 when it happened again in Dr. Kosztolnyik’s course. His penciled “Very Good!” on a particularly grueling essay question (where I had just dumped the contents of my brain onto an open Blue Book ) was like gold to me. I was a consistent A/B student in his class which was thrilling in and of itself, considering the rigorous nature of his exams. This wasn’t so much a testament of my intelligence (for I was–at best–an average student) as it was proof of his teaching ability. He always had a moment to encourage and inspire and you always left his presence feeling better about yourself than when you first knocked on his office door.

As an instructor, he received our respect because he offered it first, rather than demanded it. He was firm, but kind. He didn’t expect us to love history the way he did, but he did expect us to try and succeed, and for that, he gave lavish praise. In turn, we wanted to be better because he believed it could happen.

Under Dr. Kosztolnyik’s tutelage, I realized that success wasn’t just about the brute force or brainpower necessary to master the information he doled out. It had to begin with confidence in yourself and it was impossible to be in the man’s presence without feeling that such belief in oneself was not straining the parameters of reality.

Over the years we exchanged Christmas greetings. I sent him my published clips when I was in the thick of newspaper writing and pictures of my children. He sent me news of his most recent books or articles and he always spoke admiringly of his wife, and accomplished classical musician who–like himself–had been a Fulbright scholar, and his two brilliant daughters whose educations and subsequent careers he championed.

He offered suggestions and help for my career. He listened sympathetically to my frustrations over the lack of a master’s degree and never hesitated to offer assistance in the form of a phone call or a letter of endorsement for an adjunct professorship…something he always thought I should do. The last e-mail I received from him told of his speaking engagements that would take place this month and he encouraged me to seek my life’s purpose in a way that would make me happy.

When our oldest son decided this past weekend that he would pursue his degree at our alma mater and take, among other things, courses in Ancient History, I spoke immediately of the need to write Dr. Kosztolnyik and tell him to get ready for another pupil. A pupil who loved maps and ancient battles and early Germanic tribes. Instead, my search into the department website informed me that Dr. Kosztolnyik had died last April. At 75 he had survived cancer and heart surgery…only to die in a car accident..and I never even knew.

I was and still am deeply sad. I’m sorry for his family’s loss and for his peerless presence at the university. I also grieve for every student–like me–who never ceased to look to this quiet and gentle man for affirmation and a word of encouragement. I will never look at the word “teacher” in quite the same way again. Most of all, I’ll miss the sight of a little white envelope dropping into my mail slot just when I need it. He was one of a kind and what’s more, he believed that I was one of a kind, too. I promise to give it a try.

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