Are you a teacher? If the answer is yes, it's probably because that's how you earn your living. But are you a parent? Then of course you know you, too, are a teacher.

And what about the rest of us? The aunts, the uncles, the grandparents? All teachers too, obviously. And it extends even further than that. If you stop and think about it, we are all teachers because we all have the power to impact other people, for better or worse, and that power is what teaching is all about.

Teaching — whether it's happening in the classroom, at the kitchen table, or in the conference room — is a verb, an action word that we all understand, at least in part. We've all experienced it: as children, as students, and as adults. It's something so deeply rooted in human beings that we can't go back to a time when teaching wasn't a thing.

Even the drawings on the cave walls, it's been argued, are an ancient attempt to teach others through the stories told there. But what is it that we teach? And who is the one teaching? What does teaching look like now, and what does it need to be in the future?

We are in a precise time. Over the past year and a half, schools were under tremendous pressure to meet the extraordinary demands that came with COVID-19. Families were asked to adapt to a whole new mode of teaching and learning. Students of all ages made real sacrifices, both academically and socially, during a highly formative time in their lives.

As we emerge from this pandemic, we come out and survey the wreckage. And in our eagerness to get back to normal, we run the risk of missing a critical opportunity: to reflect on where we are, what we learned, and how we want to go forward.

While many families and teachers gleefully anticipate our return in the fall, many others — students and teachers — are thinking differently.

Families are looking for more options. Teachers are less willing to participate in a system they see as fundamentally broken. And students are asking big questions about not just what they are learning, but how. Welcome to Teachers' Circle.

Teachers' Circle is a place to explore these questions, where we can come together and think about what we are doing as educators, what it means to be an educated person in today's society, and how we can help each other do the hard work of taking care of each other for the short time that we are here. All are invited.

Over the course of this column, I will share with you some thoughts about these questions and more, questions that can help us to rethink how we teach, what we teach, and why.

A little bit about the "me" who's writing: I started teaching high school students in my 20s as a substitute. I went on to have three daughters, and then taught 7th graders for eight years. I then moved to the high school level, and have taught 16- and 17-year-olds for the past 18 years.

I also teach college students who are in the midst of their student teaching experiences. And now as a grandmother, I like to think that I am teaching my five grandchildren.

So I'm a teacher — 26 years and counting — and I'm also all the many other roles I play: wife, mom, grandmom, sister, neighbor, friend.

But mostly, I'm just a person like you: someone who wants to make a difference, who wants to be of service, who wants to leave the world just a little better than how I found it.

So I'm starting Teachers' Circle to help have the conversations that matter: about kids, about the future, about our world. And I invite your feedback. I'd like this to be more of a conversation than a monologue, so if you have some thoughts you'd like to share on the topic, send them along. With your permission, I may include them in future pieces.

Whether you are a parent, a teacher, a grandparent, or a student — if you are as passionate about education as I am, please join me in this inquiry. So the first question I want to ask you is: Who are you and who do you teach?

Gay Collins is a retired Waterford Public Schools teacher with a master's degree from Connecticut College who lives in Preston. She can be reached at yagspill@gmail.com.