“Who was your most influential teacher? Why?”

I’ve had a few teachers in my days that were very impactful to me. My eighth grade algebra teacher. My college art teacher. My kindergarten teacher. My organic chemistry teacher. The kids I played hacky-sack with in college. Rock climbing and running. My first nursing instructor. My last nursing instructor. But there were other teachers- my kids. Life. My parents. My grandparents.

My eighth grade algebra teacher: she was one of the first teachers in my life who really got me excited about STEM careers. This was at my very small Catholic school, where I had (maybe?) 12 people in my class. Of that small class, around 5 of us were in pre-algebra together. It was while sitting in her class one day that the space shuttle exploded at take-off, with a teacher on board. The announcement came on the intercom. The entire school was so quiet.

But she got us excited about math, and science, and got me really thinking about what I might want to do in college. For a while, I admit, I thought it would be really cool to be an astronaut. I think I was inspired by that teacher who had gone into space. After getting lots of advice, it seemed that engineering might be a good start, and by the time I went to college I was a mechanical engineering student.

Life, as it turns out, was going to teach me other things first. I hit a bend in the road. Actually it was more like I ran into a brick wall. And when God closes a door, he opens a window, or something to that effect, so I found myself at another school, getting ready to start my environmental resource management degree. This was interesting. I got into more biology, and more chemistry, and while there was some overlap with engineering classes, I ended up focusing more on water resources. I had a class in ichthyology, where the instructor liked to throw Bio 101 questions at us, which sent me into a pure panic. The entire class would fail exams. Anyway, it was while I was in school for my environmental resource management degree that I had organic chemistry, where I absolutely loved my class. (I mean I loved it the second time around!) It was such a big class, with a few hundred people in it. But the instructor would tell us such interesting stories, it made me actually want to show up for class (and this was back in my “I’d rather not attend class if I don’t have to” phase). I ended up with a B+ in that organic chemistry class, and I was very proud of that grade. It was probably one of the hardest classes I’ve ever taken, but I enjoyed it. Have you ever taken organic chemistry? Wow, that was something. What he taught me was that there was much, much more to organic chemistry than I realized, and he taught me to appreciate the story part of science.

My art instructor was also a big influence in my life. He was older, and was an active artist who still had shows and displayed his artwork. He lived in Maine part of the year, and Pennsylvania the other part. He got me excited about art again. The class I took with him was an art class for non-art majors. And art was always my first love. But I didn’t want to be a starving artist (or, my parents didn’t want me to be one at least) so I begrudgingly kept to the sciences, which I did find interesting anyway. I still remember some of the stories he told, about trading our time for one thing or another, and how we could spend our weekend evenings going out to the bar or doing something like working on our art instead.

My hacky sack buddies were the people I probably spent the most time in college with. They taught me that practice makes progress, and really, that the more you do something the better you’ll get. They taught me too that some things really are a lot more fun with friends, and that we could do more together than we could alone. The sport, in and of itself, taught me that even if you really suck at something, you can get better over time, simply by showing up over and over and over again. I learned this lesson again rock climbing, and yet again with running. Showing up means getting better. And set backs, while frustrating to say the least, don’t necessarily mean that it’s time to give up. Instead, rest and regroup. And get back to it.

For example, today I’m happy to say that I was finally able to get out and jog/walk for about 40 minutes. This was after not running much at all over the past few months. I’m working up to my 5 miler in a few weeks (which I’ve already decided will most likely require some walking on my part!) It felt really good to jog for as long as I did today.

My nursing instructors (and nursing, period) taught me that I could do really, really hard things. I’m gonna leave it at that.

And my kids? They have taught me it means to love someone unconditionally. They’ve taught me what it’s like to be in my mom and dad’s shoes. They’ve taught me about courage and strength. I am so grateful to have them in my life.

So while some of my teachers inspired, others taught valuable lessons about life and love.

How about you? Who have your most valuable teacher been?