The Gift Of Grace

Teacher David Guterson, who was featured in this magazine before his best-selling first novel Snow Falling on Cedars was published, believes that "teaching is an act of love.'' Mary Lee Drouin, the extraordinary high school English teacher featured in this month's cover story, is living proof of that. She is the kind of teacher Henry Adams had in mind when he wrote, "A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.''

Because she is also a singer and performer, it is easy to attribute Drouin's success and her enormous influence on her students to her charisma (the gift of grace)--of which she has plenty. But good teaching is not dependent on charisma, and charisma alone, as Drouin points out, is not enough to make a good teacher. In her first years of teaching, Drouin was always tired and angry from struggling to motivate students. Then, reflecting on the charm of a favorite uncle, she decided that the essence of his popularity was that he was kind and caring. Drouin decided that henceforth, "I would smile at students and mean it. . . . I would give more than I would demand. I would treat students as I would want my only daughter to be treated--and...