Teacher with no arms, instructs and inspires with her feet

October 3, 2012

Mary Gannon instructs and inspires with her feet. She uses her toes as naturally as if they were fingers, writing on the board, typing on the computer and passing out papers, Huffington Post reports.

Gannon, born with no arms, teaches math and science at Harding Middle School in Lakewood, Ohio. But it’s her handling of a disability that provides life lessons.

“If it’s going to inspire or help people for them to be or do better in their lives, then I’m OK with that and I hope that people gain something from me,” Gannon told Fox 8.

One of the motivational signs that Gannon posts for her students is “Life has no limitations except the ones you make.”

She takes the message to heart. Gannon was raised in a Mexican orphanage and adopted by an Ohio family when she was 7. She spoke no English when she arrived in the United States, she told the Lakewood Patch.

She hopes her “can-do” attitude will rub off on her pupils, some of whom are struggling. “School won’t be the only thing that’s going to be hard,” she said in the Patch segment.

Gannon, who is independent to the point that she can drive herself around, is definitely getting her message across.

Eighth grader Cambri Griffin said to the Patch that Gannon “teaches you that you can do anything you want to do no matter what.”

And that’s the exact lesson she’s aiming to teach.

Gannon summed up her approach to life: “I don’t really like the word ‘can’t’.”