 Gentlemen, the President of the United States, and Teresa Dozier, the 1985 National Teacher of the Year. Well, please be seated. Thank you and welcome to the White House. I want to thank Good Housekeeping Magazine, the Encyclopedia Britannica Companies, and the Council of Chief State School Officers for sponsoring the Teacher of the Year Award. We're very happy to welcome a contingent of aspiring teachers today, and we're delighted to welcome the family members and associates of our most distinguished guest. We appreciate your coming all the way from South Carolina just to chaperone Mrs. Dozier and make sure she doesn't get into any trouble here in Washington. All of us are here to honor a very special American. She and her colleagues are, day by day, in their quiet, unsung way, probably more important to the survival and success of our freedom than anyone else in this nation. That's how much teachers mean to America. Good teachers must be so many different people. Our child's third parent and lifelong friend, a person who makes hard things seem easy, who teaches us to think apart, yet act together, and who conveys the meaning of ideas, and through personal example, the nobility of ideals. Sometimes when targets of others, rudeness, and abuse, teachers must feel a little like an American dartboard, but they're tough, resilient, and pretty, and clever, too. They can be funny or cross, but they stick to their challenge, whether it's with math, English, or history, or teaching about word processors, which incidentally still leave me at a total loss. I haven't even mastered a pocket calculator yet. Most of all, good teachers care. They care very much about what they teach, about the curiosity they instill, about how well their students learn, and where their lives will lead. So we look to teachers, and we look up to teachers. We count on their conscience, their courage, and their concern. We count on them being the hero that Emily Dickinson once described. If I can stop one heart from breaking, if I can ease one life, the aching, or cool one pain, I shall not live in vain. Each gifted instructor, each leader helping restore excellence in education today, is a vessel of hope for America. Hope that ignorance may be cast away, hope that young minds may be awakened to new discovery, and yes, hope that we may always be free, for with freedom, our guiding star, America's future, will never be a burden dragging us down, but a great soaring adventure of creativity, powered by the deepest treasures of the human mind and heart, wisdom, faith, and love. We have such an individual with us today. Born in Vietnam, orphaned as a young girl, then adopted by U.S. Army Warrant Officer Lawrence Connect stationed in Saigon, Mrs. Therese Connect Dozier enjoys a dual honor. She and her mother, her brother, are believed to be among the first Vietnamese children adopted by an American couple. And as a 32-year-old high school history teacher in Columbia, South Carolina, Therese Dozier is America's 1985 teacher of the year. She said, I've always been very conscious of having been given a chance to make something of myself. I want to give that chance to others, and to share the excitement of learning that I've always felt. Teaching is a way of repaying that debt. And she has. Therese is a teacher of world history who provides students with perspective and the ability to make sound judgments. She makes history exciting, one of her students said. Therese, I'm told your account of Louis the 16th's ride to the guillotine was so packed with suspense that you had your students sitting on the edge of their seats. Her teaching is a reflection of her own experiences, a statement that there is no certainty our values will survive, that everything depends on us, and that no one should take America for granted. I strongly believe, and I know that Secretary Bennett agrees, that our actions must reflect an awareness of history and human nature, if mankind is to avoid repeating the tragedies of the past. By helping young people acquire such knowledge, Mrs. Dozier is contributing directly to the health and vitality of this country, and to its freedom. Mrs. Dozier, for all that you do so well, not only teaching, but coordinating homecoming half-time activities, cheerleading in the student-faculty baseball game, basketball game, and even dressing up for punk rock day. We salute you. Let me just say for the entire country, what your family, your fellow members of the faculty and your students at Irmo High already know. You are teacher of the year because you've taught so many, so much, and so well, and even more because your gift has given them joy and love of learning. And I don't think I'm speaking out of school when I add, the love they share for learning is the love they share for you. Mrs. Terry Dozier, today America honors you, but in truth it's you who honors America every day of the year. Thank you, God bless you always, and now I'm going to present Mrs. Dozier with a golden apple. President Reagan, thank you for those wonderful words. I cannot tell you what a tremendous honor and privilege it is for me to be here today being recognized by the highest office in our country, and what a privilege it is to be living in a country where public education is so much a part of our daily lives. The honor that you have bestowed on me is not so much a recognition of my personal achievements as much as it is a recognition of all of the outstanding teaching that goes on every day in our public schools. It is my hope, President Reagan, that you will use your popularity and influence to encourage our teachers, to restore a new faith in our public schools, and to inspire our brightest students to go into the teaching profession. And for you students that are here today, I want to commend you for your academic excellence, and for entering a field that is the most exciting and challenging field imaginable, and I wish for you all of the joy and the happiness that I have received in my teaching, and good luck to you in the future as you truly shape the future of our country. Thank you again. Don't eat it in class. No. Thank you, President Reagan. Thank you all very much. Congratulations. Thank you.