A retired elementary school teacher is inspiring students of all ages to explore career paths beyond traditional roles, including trucking. With her belief that everyone should have the opportunity for success in any field they choose, she is encouraging youth across America to expand their horizons and pursue whatever dream job suits them best.
“If we don’t let them know, then it’s not available to them, you know?” said Carol Gordon Ekster, author of the recently released children’s book, Trucker Kid, which highlights a child’s pride in her father’s career as a truck driver.
Ms. Ekster, a 35-year veteran educator and finalist for New Hampshire Teacher of the Year, has proven that picture books have far more educational value than meets the eye! By reading them multiple times daily to her fourth-grade students as part of writing lessons or social studies classes alike, she demonstrated their immense utility beyond pure entertainment.
“I think there’s an importance to every job if we’re just made aware of it, and how blessed we are that we have people in the world willing to do all kinds of things,” Ekster said. “There are people who are going to bring medical supplies and goods. We need truckers. If you could feel the passion and see the goodness of what truckers and trucking does for our world, maybe you’d say, ‘Hey, one day I want to be a trucker.’”
In 2013, the idea for the book was born over dinner when Ekster found herself eavesdropping on an endearing family conversation about their cross-country road trip and trucking experiences.
“She was the most precocious 3-year-old,” Ekster recalls overhearing the family. “It’s a fiction story, but the idea of a little girl going with her daddy in the truck, it touched me somehow. I just loved the idea of the story.”
Truck driver John Fullbright and his daughter were the inspiration for the story.
As luck would have it, Russ Cox, the book’s illustrator, also has ties to the trucking industry through his son.
Source: trucking info
