My mother, an educator, believes teachers are born, not made.

"Beyond the Blackboard" (CBS, 9 tonight) is the sweet, inspiring, and yes, a little sappy story of a young woman born to be a teacher and the challenges she faces on her first job that turn her into a better one.

Emily VanCamp plays Stacey Bess, a young woman who always wanted to teach; her calling was interrupted when she got pregnant in high school and married. We meet her later as the young mother of two with a loving husband. She's finished her education and is looking for her first teaching job. The school board's personnel director (Timothy Busfield) has just the spot for her and she can start right away; it's teaching homeless children at a special school created because the itinerant children can't register at typical schools. (A law has since passed changing that.)