Swannanoa author releases book on his 40 years in education

Rick Spurling spent four decades of his life in education and now he has released his second book related to teaching.

Spurling’s newest book, “I Wish I Had Done More! Inspirational Influences and Experiences During 40 Years in Teaching,” was released earlier this year.

“I kind of felt led to write it,” Spurling said. “I was blessed with work and not only just the experiences that I had, but also the people that I worked with. I had some great influences, and that’s a big part of what the book is about. It’s about inspirational people, and it’s about the greats that we see daily that are always right around us that we don’t really distinguish as great people, but they are with what they do.”

Spurling spent most of his career in Mitchell County, where he worked 32 years in various roles, including teacher, coach, principal and associate superintendent and superintendent. In 2016, he retired after 32 years with the county and moved to Swannanoa and started working at Asheville Christian Academy. There, he taught and coached the school’s first football team and served as principal. Spurling also taught education courses at Montreat College for eight years and East Tennessee State University for 25 years. He retired around a year ago.

He said the point of his newest book “I Wish I Had Done More” is to encourage those working in schools to continue doing the work they do.

“It’s intended to encourage teachers and coaches and parents and principals and anybody that works with school-age children,” Spurling said. “Just kind of a reminder of how important you are to these kids and what an opportunity we have daily to motive and encourage and inspire them.”

Spurling said he hopes the book can be used for staff development and to create a dialogue on how not only to make schools safer, but also to motivate those in education to continue.

“Hopefully this book can be like a pep rally or a rededication to the profession,” Spurling said. “Hopefully it’s an encouraging and motivating book, but also gives you some strategies and tips on how to deal with some things.”

Spurling’s first book, “It’s Time to Be Bully-Free,” was released 20 years ago and focuses on how to prevent bullying and its effects in schools.

“It’s just always been a real interest to me, and I just want to be in the prevention mode of getting ahead of things and the focus of my study was always how does bullying behavior lead to or endorse aggressive and violent acts in our schools, which is something that really concerns all of us as educators,” Spurling said.

His latest release includes materials on anti-bullying from his first book to help those reading address the issue in schools.

Spurling said he wants to remind educators that even though it may be easy to “get bogged down” with the education system, it is important to remember the influence adults in education have on the children in schools and his newest book should serve as a reminder.

“It reminds you how important you are as an adult, as an adult influence and adult model, the importance that you have on these children’s lives and how we need to remember that,” Spurling said. “We have this great opportunity to encourage kids, to motivate kids, to teach their direction in life to help them.”  

More:Local author Hoffman details time in Vietnam in 'The Saigon Guns,' wins literary awards