Book excerpt: It was never in author Joe Gilliland's plan to become a teacher, certainly not a college teacher and most certainly not an English teacher. But that's what happened, and he's never looked back. In A Teacher's Tale, he explains how by neither planning for nor seeking a life of learning and teaching, lacking a syllabus or lesson plan, he discovered that a life in academe lay in his path-a path he's followed for more than fifty years. A Teacher's Tale begins in 1932 with Gilliland's first experiences in schooling and concludes in the summer of 1955 just as he completes his apprenticeship and stands on the brink of becoming a qualified instructor in a small college in east Texas. This memoir presents a collection of stories about his experiences as a teacher and a college student. A story of schooling deeply immersed in the arts and humanities, A Teacher's Tale shares Gilliland's love of the university and how it compelled him to seek a life devoted to teaching, primarily in the community college arena. Through this narrative, he brings together a philosophy of higher education based on the importance of arts and humanities in today's high-tech world.