“What do you do that all these people want you to be their private English teacher?” she asked me.

I don’t know. I just love them. I wish I could teach better, but mostly I love them.

She nodded. “And they feel your love and want to come back. I had a teacher like that once too.”

Walking down the street later,  it occurred to me that that I’d heard those words before.

It was when I asked Urie Sharp how he got good sound of choirs when the members hadn’t sung much before.

“Well, it works like it did when I taught school. I discovered that students will do anything for you when they know you love them.” And it was true, because I was in his choir, and we knew he loved us.

So today I taught useful words like butterfly and flamingo and factory and our. But what I value more was that we laughed together and met each other’s eyes and when each class left, little crumbs of my heart trailed out the door with them.