My first day of teaching! I had confidence in myself, even if this was a third of the way around the world. Gaziantep, Turkey, my Peace Corps site in 1966, is now recognized as a major city and a base for reporters covering the wars in Iraq and Syria. But then it was seen by my fellow volunteers as an outpost in Eastern Turkey, akin to our Wild West in the 1800s.

    As my summer wraps up, I am slowly preparing for seventh grade at Severn School. I’m pretty excited for school to start, and I’m not the least bit nervous. But there are a couple of changes this year. First, our middle school is under construction.     Second, Mr. Daniel Keller, my former sixth-grade English teacher, was promoted to head of the middle school. I knew what he was like as a teacher, but what would he be like as the new principal?

    For the 31st time in his post-retirement second act as a substitute teacher, Billy Keyes will report for duty August 25 at South River High School.     “I’m going in the first day,” says Keyes, who at age 93 is the oldest active substitute teacher in Anne Arundel County, and likely on this planet.

    “B-G-C-A-A, b-g-c-a-a, b-g-c-a-a,” students chanted as they embarked on their operation to spread the word about the Boys and Girls Clubs throughout the Westfield Annapolis Mall.

    Carl Casary came to our school as an older man, somewhere in his 40s, to teach sixth grade. I think he was a World War II veteran. After lunch, he would read Edgar Allan Poe to us: “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Black Cat,” “The Cask of Amontillado.”

    “Did you meet any strange creatures on your way to school this morning?”     My dog … Just a squirrel … My bratty kid brother…     “I met a timber wolf when I was far up North, taking a walk alone through a snowed-in forest on the edge of the Arctic where I’d been interviewing Native Canadians on the Little Black River in Manitoba … Someone get the globe so we can find Manitoba …”

A Safe Haven after School Boys and Girls Clubs helping “to inspire and enable all young people” by Madeline Hughes

     I’ve been a teacher, part-time, for 20 years. My students have ranged in age from two to 79. My subjects range, too: music, French and English as a Second Language. I’ve taught at two elite private elementary schools and two public institutions of higher education. Except with my own kids, I’ve skipped middle and high school.     This non-traditional career path — along with observations gleaned from the education of my own two adult children — has made me a learner as well as a teacher.

    The best part of summer’s winding down is the acquisition of new school supplies.     Opening the full bag is as thrilling as opening a treasure chest. Abundant new and fresh, here is everything you need to make this the best year ever. Then comes the rush as you sharpen new pencils, use an unmarred eraser and crack open a pristine notebook to write on the very first page.     School supplies give students a better start back to school.