Growing up as an educator’s daughter, I spent afternoons running the halls of my mom’s school with the other teachers’ kids, waiting on our parents to finish grading papers, attend faculty meetings or otherwise close out their duties. My mom was a public school librarian.

Haywood County Schools Board of Education passed its budget for 2025-26, and despite multiple years of contraction and yet another budget focused on offsetting losses and minimizing expenses, the school system continues to outperform other districts across the state.

When I worked at our Macon County library, I saw its many uses. Library workers are a special breed that come in many stripes but what unites them is that they all consider the provision of knowledge and research materials to be an over-arching goal. 

If Monica Wood’s “How to Read a Book” were a painting rather than a novel, it would be a triptych, one of those three-paneled works of art often hinged together so that it can be closed or displayed open.

Kids ages 5-13 can become citizen scientists. 

I’m no extremist. I like discourse with people who hold opposing viewpoints. You can sway me with sound arguments. I feel enlightened when coming away with a better understanding of why people think the way they do. 

Many folks seem out of alignment these days, and I’ve been thinking about why that may be. The uncertainty and unpredictability of the pandemic affected us deeply and highlighted the fragility of not only our day-to-day routines and comforts but of life in general.

Sometimes, it feels like we’re just nowhere in this life. It was like that for me in the early 1980s.

By Sabrina Matheny • Rumble Contributor | I used to be a French teacher. I really enjoyed working with young people. I recognized that learning a language takes courage and felt that step one in getting my students to use the language would be building their confidence.