An Owl can only be happy in this wonderful season! Happy little kids are everywhere, attended by smiling parents, and who can forget seeing pleasant older Athenians, those wise old Owls? I’d send everyone a Christmas card if I had opposable thumbs. But since I’m an Owl, I thought I’d offer some ideas that will last forever — but only if you give them to one another.

Let’s start with our teachers. You know who you are. You’re the person who takes time to give young people a special lesson. You are the math teacher who takes time from algebra to show the high school student how to calculate interest.

Not using some abstract “word problems,” you rather show how much money it will cost him over time to buy that special car, or for her to purchase that dream home. You show how this is part of growing up, getting a job and getting married. You don’t let your kids grow up not knowing that.

Or the English teacher who can break away from Wordsworth’s poetry long enough to teach “daily courtesies.” You know, you’ll show your students how — and why — it is important to say “thank you” as a kindness; to mean it in response to someone doing something nice for you.

A kindness. Like writing a real “Thank You” letter for all those gifts and other helpful acts from others. You remember, where you take a real pen and put it on paper and write words? Young people will learn manners and courtesy are good things; that there’s a right time and place for everything. And we know that time and place because we know enough to consider others before we say something.

“Common everyday courtesies” make our world happier, more livable and less confrontational in small but truly powerful ways. Imagine the social science teacher who explains how our ever more closely connected world is becoming smaller through the internet.

Picture that teacher showing this will only matter if we learn how much we can learn from others through this incredible technology. Ours will be a wonderful world, unimaginable to our parents, if we ever realize how all the people of the whole world can become our friend if we learn not to be afraid of them.

With contact comes interest, with interest should follow learning, and with learning, the desire to understand, then to encounter. When we finally encounter the others out there in the real world, we start to understand more deeply, make friends, break down walls and enjoy so much more of life.

I’d hope for all of you to have the geography teacher who, after showing you how to read a map, shows you fantastic photos of places in the world, places you didn’t know existed before.

Waterfalls in Vietnam, the green Nile flowing through a light brown endless desert and emerald-like islands surrounded by turquoise seas can all be shown to those who will one day want to see them for themselves. Why? Because you showed them such places were out there.

Or what of the language teacher who makes learning another language real by taking his students on trips to lands where the language is spoken? We had such a teacher in Athens, named Jill Bartlett, whose efforts unlocked an Aladdin’s Cave of lifetime enjoyment for so many of her language students.

Other teachers brought native speakers to classes here, to explain their lands to students of her land, people and language. Why not ask if your children can study art, or play music or sports?

If you can’t find a place in your school, then seek out a teacher who can bring a budding interest to flower. We have a world-class professor of music who offers piano in Limestone County and another offers violin. My friend from grade school wanted to try to learn the clarinet. By doing this, he introduced music to his otherwise silent home. Today, his brother and sister conduct choirs and orchestral accompaniment.

Did you ever feel as in if you don’t even know the right questions to ask? Seek out what possibilities are out there in the world. Ask around. Offer to help others learn something you know if you can. A now-deceased neighbor taught almost every blacksmith in North Alabama his skills. He lives on through them.

We have places where you can teach others to read. Imagine what reading means for you, and know you can open the entire world to someone else if you offer such help. What if someone is blind? What if you offered to read to them?

Seek and you will find. Why does everyone know Louis Armstrong’s song, “It’s a Wonderful World,” even today? It is. You can make it so, because you might be that teacher.

— John William Davis is a retired U.S. Army counterintelligence officer, civil servant and linguist. He was commissioned from Washington University in St. Louis in 1975. He entered counterintelligence and served some 37 years. A linguist, Davis learned foreign languages in each country in which he served. His published works include “Rainy Street Stories: Reflections on Secret Wars, Terrorism and Espionage” and “Around the Corner: Reflections on American Wars, Violence, Terrorism and Hope.”