So many times this year, when introduced as the Outstanding English teacher of North Carolina, I experienced a moment of angst, which is a great SAT word. For as an English teacher, I know the signficance of the definite article `the' and realized the indefinite article `an' was perhaps more appropriate. For every time I was so introduced, I thought of the thousands of Engish teachers across the state who do so much and work so hard. In light of the tremendous efforts made in each English classroom every day, even being called `an' outstanding English teacher was bit uncomfortable. So the first thing I would like to do today is prove to you, lest you doubt it, that you are all outstanding English teachers. So please listen carefully and stand when you are told to do so.

If you own an ace bandage, and perhaps contemplated the correlation between an ace bandage and classroom management, or possibly wondered if ace bandages could be used creatively to silence talkative students, but instead have had to use your ace bandage to wrap your wrist because it ached from grading papers, please stand up because you are an outstanding English teacher.

If you found out in your first year of teaching that there isn't a briefcase made that can accommodate an English teacher's weekend workload, and if you have experimented with various shapes and sizes of tote bags, boxes with handles, crates with wheels, and even perhaps tried a wheelbarrow, please stand up, you are an outstanding English teacher....

If you have ever been seen grading papers while riding in the car, tanning at the beach, on Sunday night at 11:00 p.m., waiting in line at the grocery store, or in church between the hymns and during the preaching, please stand up....

If you have ever dressed up as Emily Dickinson, worn a black veil to teach Nathaniel Hawthorne, worn a fisherman's slicker to teach Moby Dick, worn overalls and pigtails, even if you are over forty, in order to impersonate Scout Finch, or in any other way made a fool of yourself in order to make literature come alive for your students, please stand up, you are an outstanding English teacher.....

If you believe with Christa McAuliffe that you touch the future because you teach, with Aristotle that the fate of empires depends upon the education of youth, with Pearl S. Buck that teaching is a calling as sacred as the priesthood, with Einstein that the important thing is not to stop questioning, and with Robert Maynard Hutchins that the idea of education is to unsettle the minds of young people and inflame their intellect, I ask you to please stand up, you are an outstanding English teacher....

And finally, if you believe that you are the decisive element in the classroom, that you have the power to injure or inspire and you have decided to inspire, that you have the power to create misery or magic and you have chosen to create magic, that you have the power to berate or build up and you have chosen to build up, and if you have decided that yes, you can change the world, one life at a time, and that you can change a life, one day at a time, and if you are convinced that the relevancy of the English classroom places a tremendous responsiblity upon you, and if you embrace that responsibility with every iota of passion within you, then I beg you to please stand up...you are an outstanding individual and you happen to be an English teacher.....

Speaking of relevancy, in the moments I have left let us affirm the joy of teaching English at a time when we are exhausted, overworked, underplanned, and abnormally involved with our profession. For while we are the guardians of grammar and clear thinking, we are also the beacons for good character, and there is nothing more relevant that teaching young people how to think critcally and courageously about the choices they must make.

N.C.'s character education program was nothing new to the English teacher; we always knew the virtue of vicarious experience as we presented story after story of the good, the bad, the beautiful, the bold, the wicked, the wonderful, and the entire ambiguous range in between of real life dilemmas being faced by genuine real life-like men and women.

How better to teach good judgement than to explore the foolish, impetuous love of Romeo and Juliet? Has any character inspired more courage and integrety than Atticus Finch? Does anyone exemplify perserverance any more than Hester Prynne ? (But not the Demi Moore version, where she and Dimmesdale ride off to the Carolinas in an open wagon kissing publically, something that would not happen in Puritan Boston! I know this for a fact; I am from Boston and they still don't kiss in public.) For kindness, could we not look to the Ferryman in Siddhartha, or Rebecca Nurse in the Crucible, or the narrator Nick in the Great Gatsby? And the catalog of characters who fell for the want of self-discipline is painfully endless....Blanche, Kurtz, Medea, Macbeth, Mersault, Victor Frankenstein, Willy Loman, Ethan Frome, Willie Stark....

Finally, is it not Ged's sense of responsibility in Ursula Leguin's Wizard of Earthsea that drives him to search to the ends of his world to find and name his shadow? This may be one of the most relevant texts for ninth graders, a story of a young man's move through adolescence. A primary theme is the importance of naming, and at the proper time, into the ear of each young man or woman a wise one whispers to them their true name. This name must be guarded well and given only to those who can be trusted, for to know the true names is to have power of that which is named.

One year, during the teaching of this book, one of my students was suspended. "Child, why?" I cried to her. She was involved in a fight with someone who called her an unpleasant word. "Was that your real name?" I asked. "No!" she replied. "Then why did you respond?" She didn't know, but she never did again.

I have a letter I treasure that I keep in a file called "Code Blue," and I recommend such a file to all teachers. Every note of encouragement, every quote of inspiration, every thank you, every "yes, I remember" from a former student is placed in my Code Blue folder. Then, on `blue' days, when I doubt my ability, my efforts, or the relvancy of my curriculum, the contents of my folder give me needed confirmation. And in this file, one of my most treasured letters is from a young man who wrote to me from boot camp and who learned self-discipline, responsibility, and perserverance from a book. He says "You know, Mrs. Darling, the drill sargeant here calls my mother and I some very nasty names. But I don't let it discourage me because I know my real name."

So, to close, the relevancy of our curriculum gives us a tremendous opportunity, and with that, tremendous responsibility. And the character education mandated in North Carolina can find no better vehicle than the English classroom. Good judgement, kindness, integrety, preserverance, responsibility, self- discipline, courage, all these are our privilege to convey to the young people of North Carolina. To do so is to assist in the changing of the world. I commend to you this wonderful challenge, and salute you all as the hardest working of teachers, and the most outstanding of human beings. Thank you.

Naming. A young man....Students who would not respond. BN's letter. Relevancy. Character traits. Changing the world.