As a former teacher, I’m allowed to say this. I do not believe teachers can possibly understand the power they hold in regards to the lives of the children they teach. Yes, I’ve been out of the classroom longer than I was in it at this point - I taught kindergarten and reading for seven years and Charlie is nine – but I believe seven years in an early childhood classroom, along with a master’s degree, warrants at least some expertise when it comes to education. Still, until my own children began attending school, I did not comprehend the magnitude of the role teachers play in the development of their students.

I was a good teacher. Some might even say I was a great one. My principal called me one of the best teachers he’d ever seen and people, he was old; he’d seen a lot. He told me dozens of parents sent him notes every summer requesting him to place their children in my class. He asked me to share lesson plans with veteran teachers, mentor first year teachers, serve as the grade chairperson, and pilot new curriculum. I had complete confidence in myself in the classroom. I believed my students were in an excellent educational environment. I still do.

I found success in the classroom. I taught my students to read, write, add and subtract. I taught them to recognize vowels, consonants, blends, and rhyming words. I taught them to count syllables, measure inches, and hypothesize results. I taught them the differences between cities, states, and countries. I taught them the differences between periods, questions marks, and exclamation points. I taught them to raise their hands to speak, to use polite manners, to take turns on the playground, to share toys during center time. I taught them, and I taught them, and I taught them. For one-hundred and eighty days I taught them, and I know I taught them well.

Now that I have my own children, however, I realize my job as a kindergarten teacher didn’t have much at all to do with teaching. My job as a kindergarten teacher was to help my students love themselves and love learning, and those are some serious responsibilities my friends. There’s a whole lot more that goes into nurturing the spirit of a child than creating dynamic lesson plans and engaging activities and quality assignments. Yes, teaching skills is both necessary and important, and it occurs every day in classrooms all over the world, but training a child to acknowledge their self-worth and the worth of others is a major undertaking. Making a notable impact on a child’s heart is more than a career choice. It’s a lofty goal, a significant objective, a chosen mindset . . . a purpose.

As a parent, I have witnessed the influence a teacher can have on a child from an entirely different perspective. Now, I can fully understand the weight of the words teachers speak, the behaviors they model, and the values they impart. Next to my husband and me, our children spend the majority of their time with their teachers. And Charlie and Libby won’t simply learn to multiply, divide, and proofread from these people. They will learn to express their ideas, thoughts, and feelings. They will learn to separate facts from opinions. They will learn how to respond to challenges and how to encourage their peers. They will learn organization and planning and patience and determination and perseverance and the power of a positive attitude. Most importantly, they will learn how to love themselves and how to treat others.

I enjoyed being with kids from an early age. In fact, most of my jobs as an adolescent involved caring for or instructing young children – I was a babysitter, I gave swimming lessons, I coached gymnastics. I suppose my journey into the field of education was a natural choice, but I can’t say I felt led into it. I just ended up there. Still, I loved teaching. I adored my students and found great joy in witnessing them master new skills and concepts. I look back on my years in the classroom with happy memories and little guilt, as I’m certain I taught my students in ways I want my own children to be taught – I used an uplifting, hands-on approach and tons of positive reinforcement. Yet, I know without a doubt that I wasn’t aware of the power I wielded when I was an educator. I simply didn’t realize my ability to change the course of a child’s day, or quite possibly, his life, with a look, a word, a touch.

If I could go back and do it all over again, I wouldn’t worry so much about whether my students could identify digraphs and dipthongs. Heck, I bet most people I know don’t have a clue what those words mean. Come to think of it, I’m not sure I remember the difference?!? No, I wouldn’t focus on the teaching of skills if I could revisit my former students.

I would focus on the training of hearts.

I would play more. I would giggle more. I would listen more. I would hug more.

I wouldn’t stop at vowing to say one positive thing about each child every day. I would find a dozen things, and say them a dozen times. I would notice when a student got a new outfit or a new haircut or a new pencil, because the things we find irrelevant have infinite meaning for a child. And I wouldn’t strive to let parents know whether their children had successfully mastered a list of skills; I would strive to let them know what I witnessed in their child’s character, because in the end, isn’t that what really matters?

My children are in an amazing school with incredible teachers. My kindergartner knows all about the planets and my third grader can tell me the difference between a digraph and a dipthong (and when he gets home, I’m going to ask him what it is because for the life of me I can’t remember!). But that’s not why I’m grateful for the teachers in my children’s lives. I’m grateful because my children have teachers who care about them long after they leave their classroom. I’m grateful because my children have teachers who pray for them, and for their school, on a daily basis. I’m grateful because my children have teachers who send bones home in a little baggie when they hear about our family’s new puppy. I’m grateful because my children have teachers who stand outside on a cold December morning to sing “Silent Night” to their students as they walk in from the carpool line.

Teachers are vital. They are imperative. They are invaluable, inestimable, incalculable. They are central, critical, crucial. Teachers are priceless, and I can only hope that if I ever enter a classroom as a teacher again, I will remember exactly what it means to stand in front of a group of children, and hold their hearts in my hands.

Eighteen pairs of eyes focused on her and I could see the instant flush in her cheeks. She walked forward and took her seat in the single chair at the front of the room, her chosen book in hand. She looked terrified. Well, she also looked totally and completely adorable, but as her mother, I could definitely tell she was anxious about the experience ahead. Her legs swung back and forth in constant motion as the nervous energy released itself. I smiled and nodded my head in her direction, attempting to convey my parental encouragement without the use of words.

She started a bit fast and a little quiet, but after a page or two, she settled in. Her pace slowed and her voiced strengthened. She wasn’t as expressive as she would have been in her room at home, without an audience of five year olds surrounding her, but she sounded good . . . solid. She sounded like the fluent reader she was.

Secure in my daughter’s strong start, I pulled out my phone and began recording, a huge grin permanently stretched across my face as I tried to hold the phone steady. I hadn’t realized my hands were shaking, my own anxiety forcing its way through the confidence I’d tried so hard to emit on our drive over.

Truthfully, I didn’t think she’d do it, and hey, I had my reasons. Reason number one: I've listened to my daughter belt out songs at the top of her lungs for weeks around our house and then stand on stage for her school Christmas program like a deer . . . ahem, a reindeer . . . in headlights. Reason number two: Libby once spent several days with the varsity cheerleaders at her school preparing to participate in the homecoming pep rally along with most of the other girls in her kindergarten class. On the day of the pep rally, however, our little cheerleader turned into a chicken, and those pom poms of hers never did make it out on that gym floor. Reason number three: My daughter's teacher asked Libby to read aloud to her for months before she finally agreed to do it, and when she did agree, she chose a book with four words in it.

Sure, my little girl can talk a big game. She's always been very good at making plans. What she's not always so good at, is following through with her plans, especially if they involve getting up in front of an audience. So when Libby told me she wanted to accept an invitation to read to the students now inhabiting her former preschool classroom, forgive me if I was skeptical. VERY skeptical.

I stalled on getting the visit scheduled. I told her we should wait until after Thanksgiving. Then I told her we should wait until after Christmas. Then, low and behold, there was an email in my inbox in early January from Libby’s former teachers. They wanted to set a date and I was out of reasons to stall.

My daughter was thrilled when I told her the plans were made and she was going to read in her old classroom on a Friday morning near the end of the month. She knew exactly what book she would take: "Amelia Bedelia and the Baby." Never mind that the humor would likely be over the heads of the audience. Never mind that the book was part of a collection and therefore quite heavy. Never mind that the illustrations were much too small to see from a distance. Never mind that the story was a lengthy one. My daughter loved "Amelia Bedelia and the Baby" and she knew she could read it well. And she did read it well. Very well, in fact.

Right up to the point where she got stuck.

It was the longest word in the story. It was a word rarely spoken and a word I've never seen in another book. It was a word I likely “edited” when I read this particular book to Libby in the past, as it wasn’t a word I cared to hear my child repeat. It was the word ‘tarnation.’ Seriously, who says that word? You drop a jar on your foot and you yell ‘TARNATION!’ Yea, I didn’t think so. Maybe your great grandmother used that word down in south Georgia a century ago, but today, it's not a common expletive, at least not in these parts.

Yet . . . Amelia Bedelia uses the word ‘tarnation.’ And now, my daughter was sitting in front of eighteen people, trying desperately to determine what to do because she had come to a word in the book she was reading aloud that she didn’t know or wasn’t sure she should say.

As mothers, we’ve all had those moments. You know, the ones where you feel as if someone is actually reaching into your chest, grabbing hold of your heart, and twisting it as tightly as they possibly can. Well, this was one of those moments. I was twenty feet away from my daughter as I watched her face contort in confusion. I saw the look of panic in her eyes and the quiver of her lip as helplessness began to consume her. The alarm sounded inside my head and I felt hot beads of sweat begin to form as every ounce of blood in my body rushed to the surface of my skin. I could see flashing red lights around me, all of them screaming the same dire message.

RESCUE! RESCUE! RESCUE your daughter!

I opened my mouth but no words came.

What should I do? What can I say? How do I help her?

I'm sure no more than two or three seconds passed as this event played out that Friday morning in Libby’s old preschool class. My daughter stumbled, just for a moment, and struggled to get back on her feet, something she does on a daily basis . . . something we all do on a daily basis. And yet, the familiar rush of emotions that overtook my being as I witnessed it was torturous. It was physically painful to watch my child sitting on the brink of failure with a crowd observing.

I didn’t rescue Libby. The teacher, who was sitting just a few feet away, jumped to action and helped my daughter with the word she didn’t know how to say. I was already a big fan of that teacher. Now, she’s one of my heroes.

The rest of the read aloud went perfectly. Libby recovered quickly and went on to finish the book as if she’d been reading to a classroom full of students for years. She was so proud of herself as she skipped down the hall and back to our car just minutes later, and I felt so grateful to be her mother. Still, I will forever remember that moment when my heart twisted inside my chest while watching my daughter flounder to get out of a situation she didn't want to be in. I’ll never forget the overwhelming intensity of emotions in my soul as I observed my child hanging on for dear life.

Oh, I'm certain I’ll have those feelings again. As the mother of two children, my heart will likely be caught in that vice grip of concern many, many times in the years ahead, and I imagine it will never get any less difficult to witness my children in the throes of their discomfort. In all honesty, as much as it hurts, I want my children to have some challenging experiences in their lives. They need to know what it's like to suffer embarrassment and heartache and helplessness, or else how will they learn to empathize with others? How will they learn to ask for help? How will they learn to trust in the only one who will always be there when they need Him?

I suppose, as a parent, all I can do is hope and pray that there will always be loving and supportive people nearby when my children are in need of being recued - teachers, friends, family members. And one day, when my heart has been thoroughly ripped to shreds after all the worry and hope and pleading with God to protect my children from all that can trip them up in life, I will have to smile, step back, and let my children rescue themselves.

It’s official. I made the mistake I suppose all parents are destined to make. I blinked. I blinked and the tiny newborns cradled in my arms were suddenly crawling towards me with silly grins on their faces. I blinked and the babies crawling towards me suddenly walked and talked and asked me a thousand questions a day. I blinked again and the chubby toddlers grew long arms and long legs and big opinions. I must have blinked a few more times because this morning I found myself sobbing in a carpool line as I watched Charlie, our third grader, and Libby, our kindergartner, walk into school together. As they walked away from me, I realized one of the most important and special stages of my life has ended. Now, they are as much the world’s as they are mine. And I’ve decided I simply have to stop this whole blinking thing. It’s much too hard on my heart.