What can I offer this week, which for many is one of the busiest weeks ofthe semester? It is such stressful time for teachers and students—everybodygets tired, even the best of us get cranky. I know what many teachers wouldlove to have: a grading machine, delivered overnight with no assemblyrequired.

Minus the grading machine, I’m thinking what teachers might need at a themoment is a bit of inspiration, a reminder that even though this work is hardand tedious and seems endless, especially this week, it is work that mattersvery much. And here’s a quote that offers just that sort of gift.

“Every man or woman who ever accomplished anything magnificent was touched,somewhere, sometime by a teacher. Every teacher then may turn out to have beenthe teacher of a magnificent man or woman. Even the not-so-magnificent men andwomen of the world, however, are touched by teachers. Some people achieveimmortality by building monuments or writing books or painting pictures orsculpting marble. We teachers achieve immortality by sculpting lives.”

I know it probably doesn’t feel like you’re making much of a statue thisweek, but keep chipping away and when the semester finally is over you canstand back and admire how much you accomplished this semester.

The quote appears in an article, “The Joys of College Teaching,” written byPeter G. Beidler. It was published in the Phi Kappa Phi Journal. Ican’t tell you when. When I first started collecting articles I wasn’t alwayscareful about affixing dates, but my copy is on paper that has yellowed.

Teaching Professor