My Life with Thoreau Essay example -- How Education Has Changed My Life

It was my high school teacher, Anna Shaughnessy, who introduced me to Henry David Thoreau. His Walden was not part of the course of study. She asked whether I knew of this Massachusetts writer. I didn't. Without scaring me off by proclaiming how great he was, she said he had lived and died in obscurity. But not like some romantic poet in a dusty garret. He had done all kinds of work for a living-been a schoolteacher, surveyor, pencil-maker, gardener, carpenter, mason, lecturer, naturalist, as well as keeper of a personal journal into which he wrote two million words. "Thoreau was born in 1817, about a hundred years before you," Miss Shaughnessey said. "But I think, when you read him, you'll find his ideas, his way of looking at life, will mean as much to you as if he were born yeste...