The Power of a Teacher

It would be safe to say that no teacher takes the job for the money. Instead, their goal is to change the world a little bit, one student at a time. But as the years and the frustrations of the job begin to stack up, the mission gets lost somewhere along the way, and teaching becomes a job instead of a calling. Adam Saenz, author of The Power of a Teacher: Restoring Hope and Well-being to Change Lives (Intermedia, June 1, 2012) says that it doesn’t have to be like that, and that it’s possible to rekindle the passion that got you into teaching in the first place.

Dr. Saenz is a beneficiary of two teachers who took the time to make him understand his true identity and believe that he could be something great. His story begins like a lot of stories of troubled kids---drugs, jail, discipline problems at school  and on and on down the spiral to what could have been a very bad end. Instead, he was reminded that he had potential, and used that encouragement to change the trajectory of his life forever. He would eventually earn his Ph.D.  from Texas A&M and study at Harvard and Oxford. He credits every bit of his success to two of his high school English teachers, Mrs. Exley and Mrs. Roberts, who literally changed his life and the lives of everyone Dr. Saenz has touched through the years.