Torey Hayden

Torey Hayden was a teacher for children with special needs for many years. She also happens to be an author who wrote about her experiences as a teacher… and she’s totally one of my heroes.

I don’t really know what to say about her that isn’t going to sound incredibly cheesy and false. I know that she has inspired me (see, cheesy sounding, right?). I work with children – not anything like what she did – and I can tell you that whenever I am having a problem with a particularly difficult child, I can’t help but think about her books. It’s not exactly a “What Would Torey Do?” situation, but pretty damn close. It’s perhaps more like “I’ve got one child here who is acting out, but Torey had 6 or 7 of them at once, so I really should be able to handle this without losing my patience.”

It works. Many a parent or coworker has commented on how patient I am with children… I really should credit Torey Hayden more. Heh, I guess I’m doing that now.

Of her books that I’ve read, I suppose the one that impacted me the most was the first one I read, One Child. I’d summarize it, but well… I just linked to the Amazon page so you can read a perfectly good summary over there. I should admit that there is a section of that book that I have never read because I started to feel physically ill (it was the section that dealt with the kind of horrific abuse one of her students had suffered), but I’m known for having a fairly weak stomach when it comes to things like that. But her books are full of hope and joy and promise and all the things that make me love working with children and I highly recommend them.

You can check out her website here.