I have taught for many years and have been fortunate to have had wonderful experiences. Every year there are multiple students who offer new insight into my career, create new pathways or learning, and genuinely touch my heart; but until this year I have never felt like I made a difference. That is, until the four; because of these four boys, I now know why I became a teacher. These four challenged my thinking and forced me outside of my comfort zone, beyond the daily description of my job, to a place where I was moved to discover what is truly possible when you give a little more than what is expected.  My story however is much more than just the classroom experiences and the tools I designed and developed with these students.  It is also a story of personal growth and development as I struggled to make meaning of what I was learning and adjusting to a whirlwind of changes in my life including my husband’s job loss and later relocation, my own children entering adolescence and my own search for meaning and purpose in my work and personal life.  Through this blog I hope to reflect on my experiences with my students, teachers and school and synthesize those experiences with new learning and implications for changing the way we educate so that we make our students thirsty for learning and develop scholarly habits that will help them believe in themselves and in their power to innovate and change not only their own world but the world around them.