Good evening to all of you..particularly to those 91 men and woman for whom this evening has been given. Those who knew you best, your colleagues and co-workers at the building level, sent you here; your greatest achievement has been to be an excellent teacher in an inspiring way. In all of the wonderful moments of representing the county, no recognition has moved me as deeply as the day my vice principal told me that my peers and colleagues had asked me to represent them as our school's nominee.

For the finalists, these remaining moments may be tense, and you may not hear much of what I say as you reflect upon what this night may bring you. But please hear this....six worthy people will leave this room tonight as your runner-ups. Remember them as often as you can and as they will celebrate your recognition, do celebrate their participation in this strenuous process of selection.

In that spirit, please let me bring before you once again, to celebrate their outstanding careers and their ongoing commitment to the children of Wake County, the runners up from last year, fine teachers I have remembered so many times this, any one of which could have been here tonight to thank you and to share with you their vision of our profession: Diane Garland of Millbrook High School, Carolyn Goolsby of Apex Middle School, Charlie Hess of Wake forest Rollesville High School, Debbie Powell of Creech Road Elementary. Melanie Smith, Washington Elementary, and Brenda Tyner Durant Road Elementary.

Please let me also mention that my teaching colleagues are tonight celebrating the life of a most inspiring teacher, my predecessor, Garner Senior High School's teacher of the year in 1995. Lisa Wall has literally given her life in service to the special programs department and to the special students in it, all the while fighting a terminal illness. Working far harder than maybe she should have, but never as hard as she wanted to, her strength ran out just yesterday and she passed from the heart of our school to the arms of her Lord. She leaves to all of us a legacy of how to educate all the children, and in the long journey to her early death she taught us much about the power of living with joy and courage.

Now to thank you, for that is why you were brought here tonight... to be thanked for 'many things.' Well, I'd like to be a great deal more specific than that, and to do that I will address you not just as your colleague, but as a parent, a taxpayer, and a member of the community.

I'd like to thank you first of all for those neat little stickers you've been buying. You followed the trends well...as soon as tyrannosaurus rex was passé, you were right in there with masters of the universe, transformers, power rangers, ninja turtles, and Return of the Jedi. And I love those scratch and sniff ones! The chocolate was my favorite, till they came home with the Dill pickle one.

And thank you for the candy you are always purchasing. I'm not always crazy about them having candy, but I do realize how important bribes, I mean incentives, are.

Thank you for buying the special tissue from the grocery store, the soft kind with the lanolin. Not only do they clean the blackboard really well, but you knew that the Wake county warehouse tissue, while adequate for a child's runny nose, was far too rough for a child's weeping eyes. Tears need lanolin plus puffs. Thank you for knowing.

And thank you for yards and yards of borders, acres of posters, and 17 alphabets worth of bulletin board letters. And also thank you for the hours and hours of time you spent in Stone's School Supply. I saw you there! You had three packs of green letters 2 " high, and one pack of gold. You changed your mind when you saw the Barney borders, and exchanged the green for white. Then you thought better of the gold, went back and got the green. After two hours of this, including several times consulting a bulletin board idea book that you did not buy, and after you were already in line, you reconsidered, stepped out of line, changed the theme, the letters, the borders, and bought another pack of glitter while you were over there, just in case. Thank you for caring so much about the learning environment of my child, and for bearing the expense in time and money.

And speaking of time, thank you, too, for taking a parent's phone call at home. Thank you for understanding they did not deliberately mean to call you during dinner, and for understanding their fear and confusion as they struggle to do a job that is more difficult than teaching, involves longer hours and pays less. * And when you hung up the phone, you may have been thinking some things, but thank you for not saying them.

Thank you for believing that parents are not a part of the problem but the potential partner, thank you for reaching and even sometimes teaching those partners, and thank you for joining with those partners to build a hedge of protection around our young people.

Thank you for all the calls you made to contact your parent partners, not from the phone by your desk in your classroom.....but from your own phone at home on your own time.

And thank you for blurring so completely that line between school time and your time, and for giving new meaning to the words "full time" by accepting the responsibility of modeling good citizenship at all times.

But thank you above all else for whatever it is you do when you are in that classroom with young people. I don't know what it is you do, though I strive to do it every day four and five times a day, all over the school, in any class I am needed. I have read books and watched peers and written plans and attended conferences and catalogued a thousand new ideas, and some days it happens and somedays it doesn't. I've heard it said that the secret of teaching is to look like you have known all your life what you learned this afternoon, and some days that is just what it seems to be .

I know that in the public debate it is called Education, but I know that education is one of those words that, as Orwell suggested, suffers from multiple definitions, like democracy, freedom, and love. I know from my Latin studies that to educate is literally to lead out. Well, there are days....

I know Mark Twain said that, like soap, it may not be as sudden as a massacre, but it was just as deadly in the long run.

I know parents recognize it when it occurs and they rejoice. I know students recognize it when it is coming and groan as it passes over them. I know good teachers produce it daily by a combination of preparation, persistence, and positive reinforcement.

And I know that in our effort to understand the word better, we have created a number of metaphors.

For example, some people have call education a business. Well, I 'm not sure. If this is so, then teachers are probably on the assembly line wondering why the workers are late, the widgets don't work, and when they'll see a profit.

Some people call it a garden. Well, this one has possibilities. I like to think of my students as buds of potential flowering in the rich soil of my classroom. But rather often, some teachers are out in the back acre sowing seed in a rocky soil, pulling weeds and bagging boll weevils, and even though there is no shortage of fertilizer somehow they aren't reaping the harvest for which they had hoped.

Some people call it a war on ignorance. This is grim and others would say unbecoming of our profession. But sadly to many teachers, this metaphor rings the truest, for they often feel they are on the front lines of a bitter social conflict, dodging bullets, cradling casualties, and trying diligently to implement yet another battle plan written by a very distant general who hasn't seen a foxhole in a very long time.

So, whether we work with widgets, warriors, or weeds, since teachers are the ones that produce it/education, they must work to define whatever that is that occurs in their classroom, because not only is the public demanding it, but the policy makers are struggling to mold it and the legislature is determined to measure it.

Let us begin with a few astute observations of our own.

Good teachers know that BF Skinner is correct, that "Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten,"

And good teachers know that whatever new reform is sent down from above, that program stops at the classroom door...if there is a good teacher in that classroom, the program probably was not necessary, and that if a poor teacher is in that classroom, then the program probably isn't going to help,

And good teachers agree with Wm. Butler Yeats, who said education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire,

And good teachers know that facts are dead things and feelings can be deadly,

And good teachers know that taming the feelings gives life and purpose and meaning to the facts,

And good teachers know that development of character is as critical as the delivery of content.

And good teachers know that a student's mastery of self is as critical to life success as their mastery of any life skills,

And good teachers know that the head may need instruction, but the heart craves inspiration,

And good teachers know that connection to the community is at least as important as completion of college,

And good teachers know that not all children will understand calculus but all children can understand moral wisdom,

And good teachers know that the simple and unassuming children in our classroom are worthy of dignity and respect, regardless of their levels of achievement,

And good teachers know their level of achievement should be their personal best, not the best of a national standard.

And good teachers know all children can grow beyond their own base line even if they can never grow beyond a district's base line,

And good teachers know that the greatest dilemmas of our society are not corporate incompetence but corporate greed, not legal services but legal loopholes, and not man's inability to communicate but his inclination to deceive,

And good teachers know these dilemmas are issues of the heart, not deficiencies of the head,

And good teachers know that even if the head is filled but the heart remains empty, education has not fully occurred,

And good teachers know most of all that whatever this miracle of education is, there hasn't been a test written that can measure it fairly for every child.

So then, what is it that we do? And that your peers have decided you do well?

Carl Jung pointed out that we look back with appreciation to the brilliant teacher, but with gratitude to the teacher who touched our human feelings. He said that the curriculum is so much necessary raw material but warmth is a vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of a child.

I would suggest then that what you do has more to do with the change you have wrought in the heart more than the challenge you have presented to the head.. Let's face it, ladies and gentlemen, if it's information you want delivered, a machine will do it more cheaply and more efficiently. Or as another put it, I can give you a good education with a five foot shelf of books. However, with all due respect to Apple and IBM, there will never be a machine that inspires a young person to leave the comfort of what is known and allow himself to be lead out on the scary high wire that spans the gulf of ignorance and leads to the mountain of wisdom. For that, you need a good teacher.

Well, I must conclude rather inconclusively....for I don't have a definitive answer either. I know I succeeded in educating a young man last year. It was his second senior year (most of us only get one!). My classroom was the third one for him that year, and it was only the 3rd of September. No one wanted him...he was mean, tough, and dumb, they said. And he seemed bent on fulfilling that prophecy. I know he made me cry many a day with his unruly behavior and stubborn resistance to being led out on the high wire. But I also know that I expected a 250 word essay from him, and by June, I got it. And I also got a 750 word research paper, and I got the joy of watching him read with curiosity and focus for a full thirty minutes, several days in a row. And I watched him ever so slyly rejoice in his learning, and I watched as the lights went on and the magic occurred, and one day I heard him make a phenomenal connection between Grendel and Macbeth, and he saw my tears, and he found out he was not dumb, I was tougher than him, and meanness was completely unnecessary. And when he walked across the stage, I knew he was educated, whatever that meant and regardless of whether it could be measured.

And if it were your turn to stand here, you could tell us of a hundred similar stories. This makes us educators, architects of the human spirit and shapers of the common mind. We change the world one life at a time. We touch the future. We teach. Thank you for being a good teacher. Judy E. Darling 1997 TOY Banquet Keynote Speech May 1, 1997

This speech may be used to uplift or inspire other teachers, but please do not publish or print in whole or in part without written permission from the author.

Thank you. J. Darling (919) 662-2413 Garner Senior High School

jedarling@aol.com