National Council of Teachers of English.

I’ll be with you in spirit.

I’m reading the English Journal and Language Arts, happy to be included. Have you read my article, “Run-Around Smog,” in the latest issue?

NCTE is my people.

Everybody wants and tries to find their group. For me, it’s teachers, more specifically, English Teachers.

Yes, I did teach elementary, and loved it. I got to teach English, and math, and art, and history/social studies, and science (I was the Mad Scientist of Longfellow Elementary).

But high school was in many ways the best, because I could teach college to high school seniors. The words and literature are the same at both levels.

And my students were colleagues because we wrote together, poems, stories, essays. I took some students to readings, author gatherings, and they shared their writing with the larger real world.

I loved my students for their joy in life, for the love of literature we could share, for manifesting the success of teaching when we get it right.

I’m more than two decades retired from a 40 year career in the classroom, but I’m still part of the profession, the calling that was never just a job.

So, when you gather in Denver, I’ll be there with you. My spirit has not retired, and I love you all.