With the launch of my first picture book, Everyday Wishes, I’ve been reading to pre-k, kindergarten and first graders in elementary schools. In doing so I’ve been reminded of a simple truth. Those that teach are the heroes and heroines of our society.

I look into twenty, thirty, one hundred sets of eyes in these reading circles. Around the perimeter are the teachers who spend day in, day out with them, shaping the way they will think about the world.

Most of us recoil in horror if someone suggests we would teach “the little ones.” Not enough patience, no time for meltdowns, no interest in the young aes.

And yet, all of us were once in school. Those of us who are parents, take the teacher’s treatment of our child very seriously.

School is the building block of society. If only society wouldn’t take schools and their teachers for granted.