Printed: 2/20/09

When I read the other day about people going into teaching as an easy backup plan in a bad economy, I could just hear my art-teacher sister’s comeback: Try a week at the local high school first and see if you last.

An artist who wandered the globe in her youth and chose Peru for her honeymoon, she would tell anyone who asked that teaching’s her first and best work. A calling, not a backup plan.

I understand the attraction of certain jobs in bad economic times. You know the ones: health care, police work, education, anything that speaks of durability. A steady paycheck is a real gift in a down market.

Even so, I was struck by the attitude I saw in reporter Anna Mitchell’s recent story about a fast-track way to become a high school teacher.

The people she interviewed at an introductory seminar said teaching had always appealed to them – as a profession, and a stable job with good benefits.

“As long as kids are being born, we’re going to need teachers,” one man said. You can just hear the unspoken rest: How hard can it be, right?

I remember Cathy telling me once that her favorite classroom moment was when a student suddenly blurted out, “Wow!” over a picture he or she just finished. She said what almost always followed was, “I didn’t know I could do that.”

And he wants to try again.

An interesting thing about siblings, especially younger siblings, is how hard it is to imagine them in their professional capacities. The image of Cathy as high school teacher has always competed with memories of her eavesdropping behind the couch when I had friends over.

There’s also the fact that I left Savannah and she stayed. Siblings who see each other at Rotary are better able to grasp the transition.

But I’ve had a couple of chances, over the years, to visit her on the job. I recommend it, if you have a sibling. It’s quite enlightening.

I knew she was a creative artist. What amazed me was how creative her students were, and how confidently they worked at their assignments. No hesitant efforts anywhere. They listened when she talked and lingered when the bell rang. Several usually stopped by after school to talk more, and not just about art. It was obvious some of those conversations had been going for a while.

Cathy and I have had many debates about education, but those insights into her teaching life are what I remember more.

Think, for a minute, what teachers do. Their students come from all economic, ethnic and social backgrounds. Some can’t speak English. Some arrive hungry, poorly clothed, or lacking basic supplies. All have different learning styles, which a good teacher is expected to understand and address in his or her lesson plans.

The quality teacher also must teach creatively, discipline wisely, react to all comers – parent, student or superior – patiently, and ensure that every child performs at the highest possible level on the avalanche of standardized tests every state requires.

Yes, some burn out and skate through the day. Some skate from the start. But far more see teaching as a calling they strive to answer every day.

My sister was one of them for 20 years. When she lost her life to breast cancer last January, well over half the 600 people who visited us at the funeral home were her students and their parents.

Her art classes created a joyous collage of 50 customized squares celebrating all she taught them, and presented it to her husband that night. I still remember what one girl said: “I didn’t know I could do the things I can do, but she knew. She taught me how to see. We are her art.”

Only a calling can deliver that.

Printed: 1/2/09

Janus, the Roman god after whom January is named, personified change, transitions and beginnings in Roman minds. Consequently, he had two faces gazing in opposite directions, so he could look backward and forward in equal measure.

Which defines, of course, what we all do at the beginning of a new year; what all the top-10 lists of trends, innovations, newsworthy events and predictions are all about. We review what humankind has accomplished, for good or ill, and attempt to foretell where our talents for both will carry us in the future.

It can be a sobering exercise, perhaps more so as 2009 peeks over the horizon than it has been for many Januarys past.

Our national talent for foolishness, recklessness and greed has ushered in an economic crisis of frightening proportions as venerable institutions topple and government relief packages of $800 billion-plus are described – by straight-faced transition teams – as “fiscal restraint.”

South Carolina’s unemployment rate is third highest in the nation, prompting the governor and Legislature to escalate the finger-pointing over who’s responsible and why. State budgets have been slashed and services cut. Greenville’s Salvation Army chapter ran out of toys – with 500 children still on the list – the week before Christmas, after already playing Santa for 1,200 children.

But flip the Janus coin to the other face and you’ll see hope as well. Americans are a resilient people. Desperate times often breed the best ideas – and the most productive changes, both individually and corporately.

Such are the conclusions we can draw from the 2009 predictions of long-time trend forecaster Faith Popcorn and her marketing consultancy firm BrainReserve.

Popcorn foresees a year of “fear, anxiety and uncertainty” in 2009, yes, but with it, “a new frugality movement” she says will usher in a new set of values for the next generation.

She calls the coming sea-change the Four New Rules of Engagement: reclaim, retrench, reset and reinvent.

As for the first, she says look for the death of the consumer and the rise of the citizen, with “reliability” and “accountability” the new watchwords of the age. Fully 53 percent of the 1,011 Americans her firm polled this fall reported that they evaluate a company’s ethics before purchasing its products, and 65 percent do so before investing.

Americans also are cutting back and staying home, Popcorn says. Four out of five report buying less stuff, and 72 percent say they’re spending more time at home. If prices rise, they’ll cut back more.

Nearly everyone BrainReserve surveyed – 90 percent – are looking for ways to live a simpler life. Three out of five say they’re turning to their faith for strength in tough times. They’re questioning personal career satisfaction and goals, and rediscovering American ingenuity.

That means more bartering, swapping, haggling and re-using, Popcorn says. Quality over quantity. Bar sales are down; Madison Avenue is empty. People are re-examining what matters and acting accordingly.

Not a bad way to start a new year, not bad at all. Desperate times can be good times if they teach important truths, chief of which is this: what we do, what we choose, matters.

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow,” Albert Einstein once said. Wise advice, indeed, in 2009.