Our stories-- What made you an educator?

When you're a teacher, people almost always make assumptions: you like the summers off, you didn't do so well in school, you're planning on marrying someone rich, you're a dreamy eyed liberal. Well, when I was a teacher, I always introduced myself at Meet the Teacher Night the same way. I'd put on my biggest smile and say, "In my family, you're either a teacher or a preacher, and if you can't tell already... I'm not really cut out for the ministry." Growing up in my family, I never thought of it any other way.

My parents, born 1941 and 1943, were teachers in NC public schools. My father's father, John S. Oehler, Sr. born 1911, was the principal of an elementary school in Kannapolis, NC. My father's mother, born 1907, was a teacher in a NC public school. My mother's father, Ira C. Sassaman, born 1910, was an English and Math teacher as well as a School Board Member of his town. My mother's mother, born 1904, was a teacher at age 15 in her central PA town of Belleville. My older sister and I both went into teaching. I suppose, one day, one of my two children will be teachers.

Yet, when I think back about what really led me into teaching, it wasn't what my parent's or grandparents did, but how they acted and how they treated others. I always think of going to the Kannapolis K&W with my Grandmother, Lucile Oehler. I must have been about six, and oh boy did I love the cafeteria. Even today, the thought of going down that line and looking at all those types of desserts makes my mouth water; but going with my Grandmother was about something other than food.

As soon as we walked in the door one person after another walked up and politely thanked her for having been their teacher. It is as if the cafeteria line were pointing in her direction. They would boast that they were now fine citizens with good jobs just as if she was waiting there ready to reward them, gradebook in hand. These grown men and women gazed into my Grandmother's denture less wrinkled face the same way they had done so many years before when they first walked into her classroom. They knew that Ms. Oehler would not treat them like lint heads, the poor children of mill workers. They knew from the moment they walked into my Grandmother's classroom that they were going to be respected. My grandmother didn't shy away from providing tough love (she was after all a good Lutheran and the mother of three boys), but she believed in providing her students with the tools and skills that would enable them to reach their dreams. This interaction mesmerized me, even then, as I watched my toothless grandmother eat her jello and butter beans so long removed from the classroom.