An All-School Reunion was to be held in Barditch High School. Over 450 people came to the event. There were tours of the old school building and a picnic at Confederate Park. Several former teachers were on hand to tell stories about the old days. Ms. Mabel Yates, the English teacher for over fifty years, was wheeled to the Park.

Then Ms. Yates started to speak:

“I can’t tell you how pleased I am to be here. I haven’t seen many of you since your graduation, but I have followed your careers and enjoyed your victories as well as crying for your tragedies. I have a large collection of newspaper photographs of my students. Although I haven’t appeared in person, I have attended your college graduations, weddings and even the births of your children, in my imagination.”

Ms. Yates paused and started crying a bit. Then she continued:

“It was my belief that if I pushed you as hard as I could, some of you would succeed to please me and others would succeed to annoy me. Regardless of our motives, I can see that you have all been successful in you chosen path.”

“There is no greater comfort for an educator than to see the end result of his or her years of work. You have all been a great source of pleasure and pride for me and I want you to know I love you all from the bottom of my heart.”

There was a silence over the crowd for a few seconds and then someone started clapping. The clapping turned into cheering, then into a deafening roar (呼喊). Lawyers, truck drivers, bankers and models were rubbing their eyes or crying openly with no shame all because of the words from a long forgotten English teacher from their hometown.

Three very strong women — my mother, my grandmother and Melinda — deserve big credit for helping me become the man I am today. But Blanche Caffiere, a very kind teacher and librarian I’ve never written about before, also had a huge influence on me.

Mrs. Caffiere died in 2006, shortly after reaching her 100^th birthday. Before she passed away, I had an opportunity to visit her and thank her for the important role she played in my life.

When I first met Mrs. Caffiere, she was the elegant and engaging school librarian at Seattle’s View Ridge Elementary, and I was a fourth grader. I was desperately trying to go unnoticed, because I had some big weaknesses, like dysgraphia (书写障碍), and had a totally messy desk with books around. And I was trying to hide the fact that I liked to read — something that was cool for girls but not for boys.

Mrs. Caffiere took me under her wings and helped make it okay for me to be a messy, nerdy boy who was reading lots of books. She pulled me out of my shell. She started by asking questions like, “What do you like to read?” and “What are you interested in?” Then she found me a lot of books. For example, she gave me great biographies she had read. Once I’d read them, she would make the time to discuss them with me. “Did you like the book? Why? What did you learn?” She listened to what I had to say patiently. Through those book conversations in the library and in the classroom we became good friends.

Teachers generally don’t want to burden their students with extra reading beyond the homework they’ve given. But I learned from Mrs. Caffiere that my teachers had so much knowledge to share. Looking back on it, there’s no question that my time with Mrs. Caffiere helped spark my interest in libraries and my focus on helping every child in America get the benefit of great teachers. I should give great thanks to the devoted teacher and librarian who helped me find my strengths when I was nine years old. It’s remarkable how much power one good person can have in shaping the life of a child.

Mr Doyle strolled into our classroom — all limbs and high-end literature. And from the moment he opened his mouth, he started opening our minds.

We were a bunch of awkward twelve-year-old’s — in our first year of secondary school at JannaliBoys’ High in Sydney’s south. To say that JBHS wasn’t well-known for its attachment to academia would be an understatement (轻描淡写). To say it celebrated the arts over sport or humanities over science would be a flat-out lie. But in the grand tradition of all good public high schools, if you wanted to learn, there was opportunity. You just had to dodge (躲开) the fruit fights at lunch time to find it.

Mr Doyle was our English teacher and ‘The Wind In ‘The Willows’ was our text. While other English teachers would read each chapter out loud — their monotone barely penetrating (穿透) the heaviness of a Sydney summer afternoon — Mr Doyle would act out every part. Mole, Ratty, Badger and Mr Toad all came vividly to life in that little classroom. The words sprang off the page, the music of language was given life. And a lifelong love affair with books took root.

One afternoon, for no apparent reason, Mr Doyle marched us out onto the oval. Confused but excited, we lay down on the grass and stared up at the sky while Mr Doyle recited poetry. It was all very Dead Poets Society.

Then, after term one school holidays, we all came back to discover Mr Doyle had disappeared. Weeks later, he appeared in Pizza Hut commercial, and months after that, he starred in the Bodyline mini-series. We were all star struck. Knowing someone who was on the telly was the height of amazing back then.

I met up with Mr Doyle twelve years later. I had gone on to become a young journalist and he had gone on to become an admired and wildly-successful radio and TV broadcaster — better known to the country as Rampaging Roy Slaven.

John Doyle, you were #theteacherthatshapedme and I salute you.