‘Thank You, Teacher’: Book gets a new life

Six years ago, Holly Holbert and her English teacher husband, Bruce, published a collection of essays by famous people about the teachers who inspired them.

Titled “Signed, Your Student,” the book was published by Kaplan and featured 68 essays from a diverse cast of people: former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich, author Tess Gerritsen, former astronaut Sen. John Glenn.

Since publication, Bruce Holbert has published two novels, including the Washington Book Award winning “The Hour of Lead” and retired from teaching. So when Kaplan decided to shift focus away from nonfiction, the rights to “Signed, Your Students” reverted back to the Holberts. Holly Holbert never stopped collecting new essays, so the couple decided to revamp and expand their collection.

Now titled “Thank You, Teacher” and published by New World Library, the book contains 82 essays. With only 30 from the original book, the rest are new, and many are from local contributors.

“It is a real different book, but mostly because of the Spokane voices,” said Bruce Holbert, who retired earlier this year from Mt. Spokane High School. “And there’s more literary voices in here. Not just from Spokane, but from throughout the country.”

Jess Walter writes about the late Don Wall, an English professor at Eastern Washington University. Sharma Shields remembers English professor William Dunlop at the University of Washington. Poet John Whalen recalls a high school English teacher from Greenville High School in Tennessee. Rock musician Myles Kennedy, meanwhile, credits Bob Curnow at Spokane Falls Community College with keeping him on the path to a music career.

The vast majority of the essays were written specifically for the Holberts’ books, but a handful first appeared elsewhere. Abraham Lincoln’s famous poem, “Dear Teacher” is printed, alongside a 1957 letter Albert Camus wrote to one of his former teachers. George Saunders’ “Full of Thinking and Caring” was reprinted from an op-ed in the New York Times.

“I’d read it and contacted him on Facebook,” Holly Holbert said, adding that Saunders gave them permission for the reprint. “It’s really great.”

The book is divided into four parts: grade school, middle school, high school and college. It’s being released to coincide with national Teacher Appreciation Week this week.

It was in appreciation of teachers that the book had its genesis 10 years ago, shortly after Mt. Spokane student Bryan Kim killed his mother, a teacher at Rogers High School, and his father, a respiratory therapist.

“I saw all the stuff that Bruce and all the teachers did for the next month to help the kids deal with it, and I thought people don’t see or realize a lot of times what teachers do, not just inside the classroom, but outside the classroom,” Holly Holbert said.

Her husband chimed in with one of his frustrations, too: “We’d watch TV and I started noticing that every time a teacher is on one of the characters on those shows, they’re either an idiot who didn’t do what they were supposed to do, or they’re the criminal.”

So Holly Holbert started contacting people asking for essays. She sent out about 1,000 inquiries, and received more than 200 responses.

“The level of response we got was really remarkable,” Bruce Holbert said.

Now that his teaching days are behind him, Bruce Holbert has found the experience of working on “Thank You, Teacher” an opportunity to reflect, and be reminded that there is kindness in the world.

“Even if you take the teaching out of it, it’s nice to hear so much praise,” Bruce Holbert said. “So much of what we hear is ‘What’s wrong with this and what’s wrong with that.’ Just to hear several voices appreciate a person in their lives … there’s no professional or monetary gain to come out it. ‘I’m just wanting to say I’m here and you’re a thread in that.’ ”