That spring, I did something I'd never done before.

I gave an interview.

A big national magazine had been asking for years. I always said no. This time, I said yes. The article was called The Teacher Who Built BrightPath. There was a photo of me in Room 214, in my Target cardigan, sitting beside a student with chalk dust on my sleeve.

I told them everything. Scranton. The lunch lady and the forklift driver. Mrs. Delaney and her Tuesdays. The kitchen table. The three thousand teachers.

I told them I'd stayed hidden for years because I wanted people to see the teacher first. “And now?” asked the reporter.

“Now I realize that was the wrong way round,” I said. “I was hiding the teacher behind the founder. When I should have been showing everyone that teachers can build things too. That we're not the people who couldn't do. We're the people who do every single day.” After the article came out, teachers wrote to me from all over the country. Hundreds of them.

One letter came from Scranton, Pennsylvania. Shaky handwriting.

I always knew you could figure it out. I'll wait. – Margaret Delaney.

She's eighty-one now. I went to see her that summer. She still drives the Honda Civic.