I didn’t hear him come in. He was suddenly just there, smiling. My freshmen looked at this soldier, wondering.

Jake wasn’t even supposed to be in the building. He’d come in unofficially through a back door by the greenhouse to visit the agriculture teacher, who had him go to the office and get an official visitors pass.

Just getting to basic training wasn’t easy for Jake. Graduating from high school was even harder. I remember him in 9th grade–a little guy who hated English because he thought he wasn’t any good at it. But there were flashes of soul in whatever he wrote that made me want to nag him to write more.

Jake came back to me as a junior, and we worked hard to get him to pass both semesters. He still didn’t love English, but it was more school in general that he wasn’t too fond of.

It became almost a mission to seek him out in his senior year, to ask how he was doing. I’d always get a shrug of the shoulders from him, but with a little smile.

Now here he was, standing proudly in my classroom once again, though not as a student, as a man.

“I’m not even supposed to be up here,” he said. “They told me I had to stay down in Mr. Brunner’s room, but I had to come see you.”

I was glad. We talked for a bit about how he was, how he liked the army, and then he had to go.

“I had to come and see you,” he repeated. “You never gave up on me.”

No Jake, I never did.

But he called. He and his group were on the bus coming back to school from the conference and they had some questions. What does “sublunary” mean? How about laity? I had forgotten to suggest they take along a dictionary. You can’t send everything along on a field trip. So I defined the words for him, and as his partners wrote things down, he relayed other questions, and I realized, wow, we’re using technology to extend our teaching realm.

This is why I love technology. If teaching is helping students learn, then why are there any rules at all about how to do that? Why can’t students phone in their questions?

I’ll admit that a text message at 9:30 p.m. asking “can I have an extension on my essay” isn’t exactly what I have in mind when I suggest we should consider extending our teaching realm, it’s not that far off, not really.

When we need our teachers we need them, whether it be during our class time or not. I know that it is unlikely that all 125 of my students will need me at once (can you imagine???), so I just like to be there, by phone, by text, by whatever means technology allows us to break down our communication barriers.

So it is with great pride (and a good deal of prejudice) that I make this link to my former student’s new blog: A New Ecology. It will be obvious to anyone who takes to reading Kimberly’s blog regularly, that I am proud of her for much, much more than a little blog. She is an amazing young woman who has taken on “a new ecology” for herself in Honduras, teaching AP English to students whose native language is not English. And this is her first job.

And yet, she welcomes the challenges that lie before her. She will struggle as we all did in our first year, as we all do even in our 20th or 30th year. Teaching is an ever-changing consumption of our abilities and intellect, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Neither would Kimberly.

She was my student and now we are hers. The best thing about blogging is that we can learn from each others’ rich experiences. If you have a moment, or the inclination, please join me in welcoming Kimberly to the blogosphere by leaving a comment for her.

I am not sure why her comment means so much to me. After all, over 45 years ago, when I was barely in school myself, I knew I wanted to be a teacher. I have always seen myself as a teacher, as one who helps others learn something of value. I am comfortable teaching all levels of students, from adults to my grandchildren (the oldest one just turned three).

But today, when she said this, I felt a humble pride (is that possible?). Sometimes I think the word “teach” carries negative associations. I’m not always happy with the role I have to play in school. I don’t like to be a grader. I don’t like to have to enforce ridiculous rules of an institution. I don’t even like the idea that I have to teach certain things to certain kids in a certain way.

I even tell my students that I wish school was a place where we could come to just learn things together.

I am a teacher of course, but maybe I like it better to think of myself as “just an adult who knows things.”