Today is World Teachers Day, a day to recognize and appreciate teachers.

I've written before about my most influential elementary school teacher. So tonight, I thought I would look back at my high school teachers. The first person who came to mind was my Grade 13 biology teacher, who instilled in me a love of science. I considered my grade 13 French teacher, from whom I learned things in French that I hadn't heard of before nor come across since. But I settled on someone who, though she wasn't a teacher per se, was extremely memorable: the librarian at Carleton Place High School.

She was a kind, gentle, helpful person. She made me feel welcome, and no doubt did the same for everyone who ventured into the library. It was a bright, sunny space, with huge windows overlooking the tree-lined Lake Avenue West. It felt like an inclusive space before that was even a thing, largely—I'm sure—because of how friendly and inviting the librarian was. She smiled easily and, though my memory is weak on this point, I believe she made an effort to learn the names of all the students who frequented the library.

I spent a lot of time in the library, especially in my first few months at the high school. Because I went to Carleton Place High School knowing no one in my grade, I felt like an outsider. I didn't belong to an existing circle of friends who had moved up together from an elementary school in Carleton Place to the only high school in the town at the time. I had come from the small Catholic elementary school in Lanark. While I went to high school in Carleton Place, my elementary school classmates had gone to high schools in either Almonte or Perth—a function of where we lived in relation to bus routes.

So the library at Carleton Place High School was where I tended to spend free time—doing homework, listening to music, reading magazines. I felt less lonely when I went to the library, especially when I saw the librarian's welcoming smile. One summer, she let me take two recipe books out of the library, to be returned in the fall. If memory serves, one or both were Amish cookbooks. All summer, I tried recipes from the books, copying my favourites onto little cards to add to my recipe file.

Teachers and others in the education field, such as librarians, can help us learn facts and figures, acquire research skills, and figure out what we're good at and where we might want to go in life. But they can also teach us about empathy, tenderness, inclusion, and many other attributes that will help make us better people.