Smart Mouths and Big Hearts

I used to be a teacher. I jokingly refer to myself as a “recovering high school English teacher,” but the truth is, I miss the classroom. I miss the students. I miss the self-discovery of the teenage years and helping young people realize who and what they’d like to be someday. (I don’t miss the grading.)

At Wilson Central High School in Lebanon, Tennessee (a Nashville suburb), I also led a club called the National Honor Society, and this is where my story begins. You can easily roll your eyes at teenagers these days. I do it myself. But I also know how much my NHS students taught me about giving back.

I’d like to thank BonBon Break for choosing this story for their Giving campaign in December. It is, without a doubt, one of the most amazing moments of my teaching career, but more importantly, I learned from my students about selfless giving.

You can hear me read “Smart Mouths and Big Hearts” in the link below.

Teenagers get a bad rap these days. They’re selfish, have smart mouths, and can’t look up from their phones long enough to make eye contact.

But I’m here to report, given the chance, teenagers can have the biggest hearts and bring you to tears with their selflessness. Don’t believe the bad hype. I’ve seen their goodness with my own two eyes.

As a high school teacher, I led our school’s National Honor Society, a group of students with the best goal: they were charged with being excellent scholars AND community servants. Some schools don’t take the service aspect of NHS seriously, but we did. (Click here to read the rest.)

 

Thanks for reading, y’all, and I would love for you to share this story to honor the young men and women who were so selfless. They deserve it.