Heroes aren’t my thing—I resist heroics, but I do have a few people I hold in my heart. Sojourner Truth is always the first. Many authors. Many people I’ve never met. And Kylene, who I met and then followed online for thirty years. She was an inspiration to me and many other teachers—the only academic I’ve ever met who gave precedence to actual teaching.

Over the years, I took too many education classes and workshops from people who failed to practice what they were teaching. Kylene Beers continued to teach kids while teaching teachers and serving as editor of an NCTE publication. It can’t have been easy.

Kylene Beers was the real deal. She practised what she preached. All honor to her life. She died yesterday. September 16, 1957 – June 20, 2025

I first encountered Kylene Beers in the 1990s when I attended an NCTE Conference in Portland. I was about to enter a breakout session, but the presenter in that room pointed me next door. “I’ll be presenting in the next session so you can come back to see me. Kylene Beers is presenting just once. You really don’t want to miss Kylene.”

She was a professional revelation. Kind, smart, and she was teaching teachers and also middle school. Ask anyone. Middle school is hard.

Beers told us to admit to students that what we were asking them to do is hard. “They shouldn’t be afraid to struggle. Struggle is good. We all struggle,” she said, and then she got me: “I struggle when I read Toni Morrison.” Also reading the IRS instructions and something else. She also taught a handy frame for typical western plots: “Someone Wants… but… So…” I taught that most every year after, and I never told my students what we were doing was easy.

We struggle because the result of our determination is worth it. We struggle because if it were easy, accomplishing our goal wouldn’t be an accomplishment. My students did hard things. I honored them for their work. They surprised themselves. They were proud sometimes. They should have been amazed.

Over the years I was often told that what I taught was too hard for high school students. A forty-page portfolio, use of PageMaker and InDesign, MLA form, 18-page persuasive essays, a micro-story every week for two and a half months? Too hard, some said. It was an unreasonable to expect they could do those things. They did them anyway.

Teaching hard stuff made my job harder. I did it anyway. Thank you, Kylene.