The thing about teaching is….errbody thinks they know how to do it. And they do.
Because you are always teaching and learning, all the time. Then, when you try to teach on purpose, it’s harder than hell and everybody gets to criticize you all the time.

This story from HuffPo about Ruby Bridges meeting up with her first grade teacher.

Oprah. You kill me every time.

The backstory: Ruby Bridges, when she was six years old in 1960, was the first black student to walk into a all-white school in New Orleans. No other parents wanted their kids with the little girl, so the teacher, Mrs. Henry, and Miss Bridges spent the year alone. But Mrs Henry remembered it as “a grand time”:

Though it was a frightening, turbulent time, Mrs. Henry only recalls the joy she experienced that year. “It was so wonderful to have a little student like Ruby that it really made it a pleasure,” Mrs. Henry told Oprah in 1996. “We had a grand time together, side-by-side. Just the two of us spent the year together.

This is the kind of teacher one remembers. Ms. Bridges recalled:

While protestors rioted across the city, Mrs. Henry walked into her classroom every day, ready to teach. “She actually taught me the lesson that I say Dr. King taught all of us,” Ruby says. “And even though she was white and she looked exactly like the people outside the school, she showed me her heart.”

It’s not easy to go showing people your heart, but what a legacy,

Happy New Year, friends.