MATTHEW BURNETTE, Staff Writer

Getting to interview several educators for our Manchester’s Finest publication and realizing that last week was Teacher Appreciation Week got me to thinking about my time in school.

The entirety of my educational experience, from kindergarten to college, was richly blessed with an outstanding group of teachers.

So many of them had a lasting and meaningful influence on me.

For some, it’s just their demeanor and how they chose to present themselves every day, often serving as a beacon of light and positivity.

For others, there are specific moments that I can pinpoint where a word or action directed me onto the path to becoming who I am today.

I could share every one of those moments and the effect they had on me or shout out all of those teachers, but I’m sure I would inevitably forget one, and I’d hate to do that.

So instead, I wanted to share the very first time I remember a teacher having a positive impact in my life.

It was third grade in Mrs. Karen King’s class at the former West Side Elementary in Readyville, Tennessee.

Our science lesson for the day was about the nervous system, and Mrs. Karen was teaching us about how the nerves send signals to the parts of the body and help them move and feel things.

As much as I’ve developed and grown as a person throughout my life, the one thread that ties every version of me together is my tendency to connect things in an occasionally creative yet most frequently nonsensical way.

So, during this lesson a thought entered my brain:

“If the nerves deliver messages to the different parts of the body, that makes them like mailmen because, you know, mailmen deliver messages.”

A simple, run-of-the-mill idea for my eight-year-old noggin, and most times, at that point, that’s where they would stay.

But that day, I decided to raise my hand and share my thought with the teacher.

Now, I should pause for the sake of clarification and explain that this occurred over two decades ago, so though it is still technically apt, the mailman analogy may be slightly dated.

I imagine if I were a third grader now, I would reference a TikTok or some other form of mobile communication that my 30+ year-old self is oblivious about.

But anyway, back to the story.

Mrs. Karen called on me and the floor was mine.

“So, I guess if you think about it the nerves are like mailmen, since they deliver messages.”

Then there was that uneasy moment; those three seconds that feel like an eternity where you say something to someone and nervously anticipate how they’re going to respond.

I don’t remember her exact wording, but I do remember it being very assuring and complimentary, which was a huge relief, especially for a kid like me who was prone to being anxious in those types of situations.

A few days after that, as I got towards the end of the test that went along with the lesson about the nervous system, I noticed that one of the questions sounded familiar.

“The ___, or the “mailmen,” send messages to the parts of the body.”

At first, I was dumbfounded.

“Huh, that kinda sounds like that thing I sai-…. Oooohh.”

I was suddenly filled with this overwhelming sense of pride as I realized that a thought that I had was important enough to be included in a test or even just important at all.

During childhood, you often get the feeling that what you think and have to say is irrelevant, usually brushed off with an “Oh, ok” or “That’s nice.”

You know, “kids say the darndest things” and what have you.

But at that moment, what I had to say mattered, and it was okay to see things differently than other people do.

And I’ve carried that with me for twenty years.