Does every little girl grow up wanting to be a teacher? I did. As I entered high-school, I settled on teaching first grade, because I was certain I already knew more than first-graders. My plans changed in 11th grade English class. I asked myself, How do you teach words to first graders? You show the word ball in the book, and some kid is going to say, "No it isn't! That's not the word ball. You don't know anything."

In that moment of realizing the younger children are, the more you have to trust THEIR faith, I decided to teach high-school. And so I did.

The schools I was drawn to were like home schools. The young people we taught also lived with us and ate with us. Except they weren't our children. I worked in small, family-hubbed private boarding schools.

Because teachers and students lived together on campus, teaching was 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In the classrooms, in after-school work and skills training programs, and by example the rest of the time.

Since then, I've spent my career in business–sales, business development and business and home-business coaching. Simultaneously, nieces and nephews have sprung up around me. Friends bring their children to visit. I've been told that after very few minutes with company, I leave the adult conversation and take the younger ones out to the field to look for cottontail and coyote tracks.   I'd rather teach a child to whittle a walking stick than to chat with the parents.

I can't help myself. My favorite teacher of all time filled her house with beautiful things she'd collected from nature, or made with her own hands. Everything that drew me in was full of lessons she patiently drew out of me, or, in rare cases, explained. I guess I've been doing the same thing with other people's kids ever since.

To the next generation, and beyond,