Best wishes to all the teachers out there for your dedication, your caring, and your hard work.

“Teachers.  I believe, are the most responsible and important members of society, because their professional efforts affect the fate of the earth.”

Before becoming a realtor, I spent many years teaching in the San Francisco Unified School district (4th and 5th grades mostly) and it was only once my first students began to get about 20+ years old and I started running into them around town that I realized what influence we, as teachers, had on our students.

For one thing, students never forget what you tell them.  Oh, they forget most of the words of the Gettysburg Address even though you thought you had drilled it into their heads, but they do remember 20 years later that your favorite ice cream was French vanilla!  I remember mothers of students telling me that an expression they heard over and over again was,  “Miss Clark said . . . If only I had known at the time when they were coming out of my mouth how powerful my words were to the students I was teaching.

It was always fun running into past students after they had grown up.  I remember standing on a street corner in SF one day waiting to cross the street when Jimmy, now 25 years old and a mortgage broker, jumped out of his car which was stopped at a red light and ran up to me saying, “Miss Clark, it’s so good to see you!”  He then in the middle of the street while traffic was waiting behind his stopped car, apologized to me for being such a trying student in the 5th grade!  He was a smart kid, but loved to play basketball more than any subject I could offer.  Obviously, he came around to his brilliance as a student later on.

I could go on and on telling my stories, but what I want to do today is to say, “THANK YOU!” to all the teachers that are still out there teaching our young and the leaders of tomorrow.  I don’t think we ever really stop being students so teachers . . .  keep teaching!

We love you!