For thirty-five years, I taught at Garden City Middle School. This is a compilation of stories about students from those years — each of whom touched my life in a special way.
There are plenty of stories about the impact that teachers can have upon their students, but all too often we overlook the impact that students can have on their teachers. In a strange and ironic way, teachers are the sculptors — but our students are the chisels that will ultimately yield the finished product.
In these pages you will meet the boy who taught me about going on when going on seemed impossible, the girl who showed me that love isn’t love until you give it away, a young man who ran forty glorious yards into the end zone, and a horse named Clover who nearly tipped the school over. Some of these stories will make you laugh. A few will break your heart. All of them are true, and every one of them made me a better teacher — and a better man.
A new story arrives every Sunday morning, in time for your coffee. Subscribing is free. And if a story brings back a memory, forward it to a classmate — that is how a publication like this one travels.
— Tom Schenkel (“Mr. S.”)
