Bigger than Rushmore

Today I had a student leave an anonymous note on my desk thanking me for the year. It hit me deep. Humbled me. And it got me thinking about my teachers.

You see, eight years ago, Malcom Gladwell wrote one of the most fascinating articles on teaching I’ve ever read. Appearing in The New Yorker, Gladwell's article claimed that the professions of teacher and football quarterback were similar in one important area:  

there is nearly no way to predict which college graduates will achieve greatness at their given profession.  

Once the QBs/Teachers rise to the professional level, they are quickly critiqued and assessed and, within four or five years, they have either solidly established themselves as capable, flexible innovators, or they are out of the profession.

Woah.

Why has this concept risen to the front of my cerebral cortex again?  Fantasy sports.  

See, here’s my thought.  Imagine there was a fantasy teacher draft at a given school.  Who would go first?  Who would go last?  In what quantitative areas would teachers be evaluated?

Now, imagine all of the teachers you've ever had...who would you draft first, and what is it that made them great? Pushed them to the top of your draft board?

Are they tangible metrics, or intangible imaginaries? Are they gut feelings, or are they quantitative statistical metrics?

Maya Angelou told us that we will forget what people do and say, but we will never forget how someone makes us feel. Does this hold the key to how we remember our favorite teachers? Were are favorite teachers actually good at teaching? 

Today, as I reminisced, I looked back on my teachers, and here is my draft board:

1. Topher Waring 
2. Darren Redman 
3. Sydney King
4. Matt Cheney
5.  Lisa Travis
6. Kit Wilson
7. Rick Elkin
8. Jonathan Miller-Lane

In short, these people were all amazing because of who they were & the curiosity and passion they brought to the classes they taught. 

Mr. Waring was my science teacher in middle school. He built a solar car with us. And not a little soapbox derby car. He had us convert a 1969 VW microbus into a solar-electric behemoth named Helios the Heron that ran off of the sun's energy and 24 Dekka Dominator Gel Cel batteries. He also built a hot air balloon with us, he taught me how to identify trees, he taught me how to build a wing that would fly, and he helped me map the human body. He empowered me to love learning, and to see the connections that could be made. Mr. Waring was curious, and he gave us no choice but to join him in his joyful pursuit of the world beyond our classroom walls.

Mr. Redman played music while we took tests. He wore bow ties, taught me what decorum meant, spoke with crisp rhetoric, read the newspaper and carried it around with him. He played the guitar and sang "Blackbird" to his infant daughter during a faculty talent show. He built a house in the woods of Maine from the ground up. He would tell us we were "on the cusp of greatness" when we were close, but not quite there. He gave us quizzes each day and called tests "opportunities for success." He ended up being my college counselor and referred to my college visits as "filling out my dance card." He was my Atticus Finch, the man whose moral character seemed impossible to break, who was the epitome of what it meant to be a man, and whose intellectual depth and quality of character seemed to sparkle as he spoke.

Ms. King was an art teacher. I never had her in class, but she was the adult I knew I could talk to about anything. She was my rock during my parents' divorce, during pain. She was the first teacher I saw to be a human being with feelings, who suffered, knew pain, just like I did. Behind her wire-rimmed glasses she used to give me a knowing look whenever I jumped contagiously into activities like washing dishes in the cafeteria, or sorting recycling during our daily campus jobs. I remember when she announced she was getting married and knowing that we were losing a little of her. That we were no longer her priorities, and that was about right.

Mr. Cheney pushed me. He welcomed me into the world of Paul Bowles, Nikolai Gogol, Faulkner, Samuel Beckett, and Paul Celan. He made me feel like his equal, and he read us poems he'd written when he was our age. He directed the first real play I was ever in; he taught me to sing, to dance, encouraged me to shave my head with a razor, and coached me to speak in a Yiddish accent. When I graduated from high school he gave me a book. In it he wrote, "With thanks for your support over the past 4 years, for your seriousness as an English student, and your decency as a human being." I have tried to live up to the last one every day since.

Mrs. Travis was a dancer. She convinced me to take a dance elective. When I confessed that I'd taken the class because there was a pretty girl I wanted to be around, she told me she had to accept me into the class, and she did so because I was a dancer. I took risks. I stopped laughing at myself. I kick ball changed. I leaped. I improvised. I choreographed. I performed. I evolved.

Professor Wilson taught one class per semester that met once a week for 3 hours from 7-10pm. He told stories the entire time. He taught me about the beauty of painting. He taught me about Frederick Law Olmstead and the genesis behind Central Park; about James Fenimore Cooper; about the Catskills; about the origins of the term "rambling" and how it used to be a valued pastime that always ended with a picnic by a brook; he inspired me to ramble to the Catskills on a snowy Saturday with a stack of paintings, trying to find the spot they had been painted a century earlier. He taught me to memorize the Bible to better understand Biblical paintings. He taught me that the best way to begin a class is to tell your students about something that happened to you that week that made you think of them.

Rick Elkin taught me about pottery; about how to use my hands; about the power of vessels. He showed me what wabi sabi means, and how there is hidden beauty in letting a pit fire have its way with your vessel--in yielding to the earth and the flames. He sat with me in the dark for hours beside the outside kiln he'd built with us, watching bright New Hampshire stars flickering overhead, the glow of the kiln constant and orange. He told stories, he never minced words. He rode a mountain bike. Years later, I found him in New Mexico and he made an engagement ring for my future wife.

Jonathan heard me say, "I'll never be a teacher. That's too easy...I want to do something that's a challenge." He replied, "It's easy to be a bad teacher. But you might think it looks easy because you'd be pretty good at it." His advice was the best I've ever taken. He told me that on my worst day in the classroom, I can still be a positive role model for my students. He told me I didn't have to shave my beard when I applied for a teaching job. He showed me how to redirect energy using Aikido tactics. He said that was the key to teaching--redirecting energy that already existed in the universe, but never imposing your energy on another.


I suppose my conclusion is that teaching is nothing like being a quarterback. Sure, both are hard to predict when it comes to predicting greatness. But when comparing the metrics of a great quarterback to the stories of great teachers, my fantasy team is beyond numbers, they're bigger than Rushmore, and they outlast the words I could ever use to praise them.