Dartmouth High teacher is inspiration to students

Janet Buehler does not want to "play the cancer card." 

Buehler, a Dartmouth High School English teacher who is married to the Rev. David Buehler, pastor of Advent Lutheran Church, Middleboro, Mass., has taught for 38 years now, and has touched students' lives for nearly four decades. Two years ago, Buehler was diagnosed with breast cancer. After missing a school quarter for treatment, she started off this school year with less hair— but the same bright smile. "I don't want to play the cancer card," Buehler said. "When you mention it, just say that I'm proud of how the kids have handled seeing me. I'm out once every three weeks for chemo, but coming to school is what keeps me going."

What "Mrs. B" may not know is while her students admired her before, in seeing her go through this struggle, she now seems superhuman, or "story-book like," as one student wrote. Recognizing her exceptional strength and incredible passion for teaching, they nominated her in numbers as the 2010 SouthCoast Teacher of the Year. "Mrs. Buehler is loved and adored as a teacher, person, and friend. Mrs. B. is bravely fighting breast cancer, which makes her even more respectable and inspiring to staff and students alike,"  wrote DHS senior Katelyn Beauregard. "Mrs. Buehler has had an impact on my life greater than any other teacher I have ever had. She has taught me how to think and how to speak my mind and express my opinion, skills that can never be relinquished,"  Katelyn wrote.

Classmate Wesley Lima will be at Stonehill College next fall majoring in English "so that I, too, can pursue a career as a high school English teacher. For (helping me make that life choice,) I am forever in Mrs. Buehler's debt. No teacher has ever influenced my academic and personal development more than Mrs. Buehler," Wesley wrote. "Throughout the last two years, however, Mrs. Buehler has reached a new level of admirable. Her strength and dedication in the face of her breast cancer diagnosis and ensuing treatment is storybook-like. I admire her more than any adult I have ever met."

Other students offer similar glowing assessments. DHS senior Morissa Vital called Buehler "an inspiration. A fighter. A human being with an impenetrable aura of genuine kindness about her, and what is most stunning is her modesty." Classmate Alexandra Nickel-Milstone wrote, "As difficult as her radiation treatments may be, she seems to be more pained due to the fact that she has to miss class. She often apologizes to us the next day for not being with us."

Buehler teaches writing and speech, 11th grade SAT prep and advanced placement literature. In her 14 years at DHS, she has also been the school newspaper adviser and a ninth-grade English teacher. Before teaching at the high school, Buehler taught part-time at Fisher College and at Friends Academy in Dartmouth. "I consider it the highest honor to be entrusted with the minds of young people. I think that to teach is a calling," said Buehler, who lives in Dartmouth with her husband.

Their son Jacob, 35, is a DHS alum living in South Africa and working in international health."I'm always trying to get my students involved with the world that they live in," Buehler said. "I like to make literature come alive in a way that is meaningful. I want the world to come alive in a way that's meaningful. Literature puts the mirror up to us to see who we are. The truth is that I would not look forward to going to school each day if it were not for those special moments that occur every day in class — those 'aha' moments that I see in the eyes of students, or those 'aha' moments that I experience as I teach — a better way to say something, or a new perspective thought out by my students," she said. 

Mrs. B is also a staple in the crowd at DHS games and athletic contests. "Football games, track meets, basketball games — I love seeing students in different lights," she said. "We have to remember what we see in the classroom is one small part of each student." Buehler tries "to show up to as many games as I can. But the difference between being a mom and a teacher is, as a teacher, you don't have to go track meets when it's raining," she said with a laugh. "Obviously, (cancer) has been a big part of my life this year, and my students have just been wonderful. But (when I heard I was nominated for SouthCoast Teacher of the Year, I just cried. And I haven't cried much this year." 

Lauren Daley is a freelance writer. Contact her at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .