World Teachers’ Day always makes me think about the teachers who shaped me.
Not necessarily through the big moments. In fact, when I think back on my own schooling, what I remember are often the small things. A kindness. A book. A quiet word of encouragement. A teacher who noticed something in me that perhaps I hadn’t yet noticed in myself.
I remember Miss Shirley in Grade 1, who let me sit under her desk and eat lunch with my best friend. I’m sure there were probably rules about where Grade 1 students were supposed to eat, but what I remember is feeling safe, happy and known.
Then there were Mrs Q and Ms C, my first teacher librarians, who opened the doors to the glorious world of free books. Imagine telling a child who loved reading that there was a room filled with books and she was allowed to take them home. For free! I’m not sure they could have known then just how important libraries would eventually become in my life.
Mrs B introduced me to history in Grade 6 and taught me the joy of delving into the past, particularly through historical fiction. Suddenly history wasn’t simply dates and events. It was people and stories and lives that had been lived long before mine.
Mrs T, in Year 7, told me I was a clever girl and that I should never back down from that. I don’t think we always realise the power of the things we say to young people. Sometimes a sentence spoken by a teacher becomes part of the story a child tells themselves for the rest of their life.
Other lessons stayed with me in wonderfully practical ways. Mrs P taught me how to sew a straight seam, make choux pastry and that you can never add too much garlic to food! Ms S understood that if I had finished my work, there were few greater rewards she could offer me than letting me quietly read and disappear into another world.
And there is something particularly special about these two women because their influence on my family did not end when I left school. Years later, both Mrs P and Mrs S have gone on to teach my own children, encouraging and inspiring them just as they once did me. There is something quite extraordinary about watching teachers who helped shape you now play a part in shaping the next generation of your family.
Mrs M gave me my love of science. Mrs B continually challenged me to be a better version of myself, both as a student and as a person.
And then there was Ms O, who taught me how to write.
Earlier this year, nearly 25 years after I had been her student, Ms O started working at my school. She came into the library for a duty one day and we recognised each other. We reconnected quickly, but it wasn’t until I went home that evening that the memories really started coming back.
I remembered sitting in her classroom learning how to construct an essay. She had this wonderfully practical technique using Post-it notes. We would capture our ideas individually and then physically move them around until our argument and structure began to take shape.
That weekend I happened to be working on a university assignment.
I thought, I wonder if that would still work?
So, nearly a quarter of a century later, I went back to the writing technique my high school teacher had taught me.
And it worked.
In fact, the writing came together so well that I eventually submitted the piece for publication mid-year.
There is something quite extraordinary about that.
A teacher taught a teenager a strategy for organising her thinking. Almost 25 years later, that teenager, now an educator herself, pulled that lesson from somewhere deep in her memory and used it to write at an article that went on to be published in a peer reviewed journal.
That is the longevity of good teaching.
It is also why I believe so strongly in the importance of great teaching. These years matter enormously. We are not simply preparing students for the next assessment or the next year level. We are giving them intellectual tools, confidence, curiosity and ways of thinking that they may carry for the rest of their lives.
The frustrating thing for teachers is that we rarely get to see where those lessons eventually land.
Miss Shirley probably didn’t know that letting a little girl eat lunch under her desk would become a memory of belonging decades later.
Mrs Q and Ms C could not have known that the student discovering the wonder of borrowing books would one day become a Head of Library Services herself.
Mrs B could not have known where that early love of history and historical fiction would lead to a life long passion for literature.
Mrs T may not remember telling me I was clever would give me courage to take risks with my learning
But… I do.
Mrs P and Mrs S, who once taught me and shaped the person I am today, are now teaching my own children. Perhaps that is one of the loveliest reminders of all that a teacher’s impact does not necessarily end when a student leaves their classroom. Sometimes it ripples outwards, across years and even across generations.
And Ms O could not possibly have known that one day, nearly 25 years later, I would still be moving ideas around before writing because of something she taught me as a teenager.
That, to me, is the extraordinary privilege and responsibility of teaching.
We may never know which lesson will stick.
We may never know which book will open a door.
We may never know which quiet word of encouragement will become part of a young person’s inner voice.
We may never know that something seemingly ordinary we did on a Tuesday morning will still matter to someone decades later.
But it might.
So, on World Teachers’ Day, I find myself thinking about all of them. The teachers who gave me books, science, history, writing, confidence, independence, practical skills and places where it was perfectly acceptable to disappear quietly into a story.
Some of them are now teaching my children. Some have probably long since forgotten the lessons I remember so vividly. But each, in their own way, left something behind.
I am a teacher librarian because someone first showed me the magic of a library.
I am a lifelong learner because teachers encouraged my curiosity.
I write because someone taught me how and another one believed I could do it well.
I teach because I know first-hand that what happens in a classroom can matter long after that classroom has been left behind.
And I believe in the transformative power of education because I have experienced it myself.
I am who I am today, in no small part, because of them.
To my teachers, to the teachers who now inspire my own children, and to all teachers whose influence is still unfolding in lives they may never get to see: thank you.
You may never know which lessons will last.
But some of them will last a lifetime. And some will reach further than you ever imagined.
