When you think about teachers, chances are you picture a classroom: desks in rows and a chalkboard. But as I head into this new year, I’m thinking more broadly about teachers and the many ways we’re taught long after formal schooling ends.
Last year, I wrote about the answer to a question I read in a weekly news article: What teacher had the biggest impact on you and why? For me, the answer was easy. It was Mr. John Gorson, my sixth-grade teacher at McAnnulty Elementary School in Pittsburgh.
I was an average student, behind my peers, and not especially confident. Mr. Gorson saw something in me before I saw it in myself. He believed I had potential, and that belief changed the direction of my life.
What I didn’t expect was what happened after I shared that story. Shortly after the blog ran, a former classmate reached out. He remembered Mr. Gorson too and added, “My guy was Mr. Jim Stanko . . . To this day, I’m so thankful for that man.”
Decades later, one person’s influence still echoed for each of us. His response reminded me that the gratitude we feel for the teachers who truly shaped us isn’t fleeting. It becomes a memory for life.
Robert Emmons, one of the world’s leading gratitude researchers, explains that gratitude has two parts. First is “recognizing the goodness in your life.” And second is “acknowledging that much of that goodness comes from sources outside yourself.”
Mr. Gorson represents both for me. Whatever academic success that followed didn’t happen in isolation. Someone believed in me first.
As 2025 came to a close, I reflected on four lessons from what I described—without exaggeration—as a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year. That’s one of the realities of adulthood: Not all teaching comes from people who stand at the front of the room. Some of our most important lessons come through experience itself.
Teaching moments show up as frustration, fear, disappointment, or uncertainty. They arrive unannounced. They rarely feel helpful in real time. But if we’re paying attention, they refine us.
Looking back, that difficult year taught me to talk to trusted friends, to take care of myself without losing sight of others, to stay anchored to purpose, and to let adversity shape me rather than harden me. None of those lessons were easy, but all of them mattered.
As I step into this new year—one filled with possibility—I notice this theme resurfacing. I’m thinking more intentionally about who my teachers are now. Sometimes they’re mentors—people in my orbit whose lives reflect purpose, humility, and service.
Other times, they’re situations that stretch me or slow me down. And occasionally, they’re reminders from the past—like Mr. Gorson—that belief offered at the right moment can change everything.
So, as 2026 gains steam, I’ll be asking myself two questions. First: What or who is trying to teach me something right now? And second: Am I willing to recognize the goodness in my life and acknowledge where it truly comes from?
I hope you’ll ask yourself the same questions.
