I didn’t know how much I missed teaching until I walked back into Churchill County Middle School on Constitution Day. I had spent 35 years teaching — 20 in elementary school and 15 at the middle school — but I didn’t realize how deeply those rhythms were still part of me until I stepped through the doors again.
I was there Thursday, Sept. 17, to help distribute pocket Constitutions to every eighth-grade student. The Constitutions were provided by the Churchill County Democratic Central Committee, a decades-long tradition in the community. They were beautiful little books, crisp and sturdy, the kind you want to thumb through even if you already know the words by heart. I was glad each student would have one to keep. But as soon as I entered the school, something unexpected happened.
I wanted to teach.
Those years teaching U.S. history were full. Full of studying, planning, collaborating, and telling stories with eighth-grade students who were just beginning to understand how the past shapes the present. I loved taking the people and events in their textbooks and making them real. I loved showing how one decision led to another, how disagreements shaped the country and how choices made hundreds of years ago still echo in our lives today.
The Constitution was always at the center of those lessons. It was the thread that connected everything else.
It is difficult for me to hold a copy of the Constitution without thinking about what it represents. The framework created by the founders was built to endure, but it was also built to change. They understood that the country would grow, that its people would evolve, and that the document would need a way to grow with them.
The amendments have always mattered deeply to me. They are not simply pages printed at the back of a little book. They define and protect my rights as a citizen of the United States and, more fundamentally, as a human being. They are promises — imperfect at times, hard-won and continually interpreted — but promises all the same.
Standing in the middle school again, holding those pocket Constitutions, I felt something I didn’t expect: the familiar rhythm of a school day settling over me. The hum of students moving between classes. The quick greetings from teachers. The bulletin boards filled with projects and reminders. It all felt like stepping into a room I had left only moments before, even though I had been gone a little over a year.
And as I handed out those little books, I found myself doing what teachers do. I asked students what they already knew. I pointed out the preamble. I reminded them that the Constitution is not just a historical document but a living one. I watched their faces — curious, distracted, thoughtful, amused — the way I had watched thousands of faces before.
It felt natural. It felt right. It felt like home.
Teaching was never just a job for me. It was a way of seeing the world, a way of connecting with people, a way of believing that knowledge matters and that young people deserve adults who care enough to guide them. I didn’t know how much of that was still inside me until I walked back into the middle school on Constitution Day.
I left the classroom, but the classroom didn’t leave me.
And maybe that is the real discovery — not about the Constitution itself, but about the part of myself that came alive every time I taught it. The part that still stands ready, pocket Constitution in hand, eager to help someone understand why this document, and the history behind it, still matters.
That is something I didn’t know.
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