My dad used to whisper and remind me not to stare when we’d visit my maternal great-grandma. Even in my youngest years, I understood that Nan had a stub for a thumb because a machine had severed off a section when she took a job during World War II in one of our hometown factories.
The way I heard it discussed back then, women worked only if they “had” to. Nan’s daughter, my Nana, had raised my mom and her four siblings while working full-time at one of the local dry cleaners. By my mom’s eighteenth birthday, she had already been working for several years. Her after-school job in the hospital credit bureau was to help recovering patients in our rural community sort out their bills and put them on payment plans when they were struggling. This was arguably a less-carefree experience than that of her friends, who were cheerleading and cruising the fast-food places on the boulevard.
But my school years became my exposure to a world in which women showed up to the careers they’d chosen, not only the jobs they needed. And so many of them were devoted to their work in education. When I started kindergarten, Miss Caracciolo was newly out of college and had spent the summer beforehand creating stuffed animals in the shape of each letter, to teach us the alphabet. In first grade, Mrs. Stephens led us in a project making homemade butter which we spread smoothly onto Saltines, a flavor I still savor. She praised my storytelling, my imagination further cultivated by the rich, sensory experiences she was introducing us to.
Other teachers took us on outdoor excursions identifying types of trees, on adventures to the library where cellophane dust jackets crinkled beneath our fingers, down the hill to the church hall (where we took turns climbing inside the silver, igloo-shaped Star Dome to learn about astronomy), and once a year, near the holidays, through the neighborhood near the school at night, where we sang Christmas carols. I observed that my teachers were as enthralled to engage in life, in our community, as we children were. These women had moved beyond making ends meet. The more time, attention, and investment they poured into us, the more fulfilled they seemed.
For the figures who dedicate their lives to preparing young people to enter a complicated world, the job is getting tougher. As I researched my new memoir, Show, Don’t Tell: A Writer, Her Teacher, and the Power of Sharing Our Stories, I spoke with two dozen U.S. elementary and secondary educators. Working across every student population and major metropolitan areas, rural areas like my hometown, and many types of communities in between, they shared their reflections about today’s teaching profession.
One theme that emerged is that many are putting on bright faces despite their exhaustion. That’s especially true this time of year — and especially this year. “We’re all exhausted by the Education Department politics and ready for summer,” one elementary teacher told me last week. When health, public assistance, and education services are cut, it’s usually educators who absorb the brunt of a fast-changing, and often harsh, society.
Data in 2022 from the National Education Association noted there’s been a 50% decline in Americans entering the field of education, compared to 50 years ago. Some states have developed an expedited track to teaching licensure, and several major cities have established incentive programs to encourage professionals to enter what, throughout modern history, has been regarded as a vocation of the heart. Think of your favorite teacher: Can you imagine them in any other role?
To be schooled by my teachers was to witness professional women who found joy in their jobs and purpose in the world, a world that they showed me was a safe place for females to thrive. Especially in communities that are still led by men — my hometown being proof that these certainly still exist — a teacher is often the first example a child sees of a woman making a living and feeling good about herself. I’d go on to learn for myself that to have a career is to know one’s contributions have worth.
Many teachers don’t just point a child in that direction — they’re often the first living example of what’s possible beyond the bounds of what a child observes at home. We need to care for them — those whose unique turns of phrase our little ones come to parrot with fondness, those who preside over a classroom where children learn to work alongside others. And those whose own lives are made meaningful by serving young people who will, in most cases, never be able to thank them for all they’ve invested. A life dedicated to teaching is the humblest, but most-profound greatness any of us could aspire to.
Kristine Gasbarre is a #1 New York Times bestselling writer and the author of SHOW, DON’T TELL: A Writer, Her Teacher, and the Power of Sharing Our Stories (Hachette/Worthy Books, 2025), and HOW TO LOVE AN AMERICAN MAN: A True Story (HarperCollins, 2011), as well as the lead editor for an internationally recognized magazine and website.
