The teacher still teaches

At nineteen I left New York to attend a seminary to study for the priesthood. Seven years later I left the seminary because of doubts about my vocation. However, those seminary years had a significant influence on my life, spiritually, for the education I received, and for the friends I made.

I became a teacher for practical reasons. I needed a job and I needed to make some money to survive. With the one education course I had in the seminary, two degrees, and with my training to work with and for people, I decided to apply for a teaching position. A Catholic boys’ school hired me, to teach Latin and English, mostly because of my experience of working with young people at a summer day camp. After one year there I accepted a teaching position at a similar school in Queens for an increase in salary. I taught there for seven years. During this time I also coached freshman basketball and in my spare time obtained a Master’s Degree in Education. Someone once told me it did not matter why we entered the profession, but why we stayed in it. I stayed because I liked working with young people.

In 1963 during a summer vacation to visit my younger brother I met my future wife. I knew after just one date I had found someone special. After returning to New York I continued to pursue her with phone calls, roses, and a letter every day. I came out again to San Diego at Christmas time, proposed, and she accepted my proposal (Ah, the power of writing.) We became engaged at Easter and married in June, 1964. Our marriage lasted until July of 1993 when cancer took her away. Our teacher-daughter and our lawyer-son continue to give affirmation to their mother who raised them with love and care and a sense of humor.

My teaching career spanned eight years in New York City and twenty-nine years at Poway High School in San Diego until I retired in 1993. After I retired I taught for two years at a local community college. Always a teacher, I still do an occasional workshop on poetry for students.

Me: I LOVE that! “Someone once told me it did not matter why we entered the profession, but why we stayed in it.” Okay. First question: What was the best part about teaching high school students? Worst?

Frank: The best part came for me came ten years into my teaching career when I put my students’ desks in a circle, sat down with them, and listened to them. That one change made a significant difference in my career and transformed my classes. Now the students talked and I listened, participated with them, and served as a resource person for their individual and group needs. My classes changed from teacher-directed to student-centered. I could see not only how much more relaxed they were, but also how much more involved they became with their education and with each other. That change also relaxed me and helped me to get to know them better as real persons and learners, not just names in a roll book. And they came to know me better as well since I shared myself with them, wrote and did assignments along with them. We all learned more by listening to each other in the sharing circle and by working together in groups during the workshop time. I became a better teacher from listening to my students and learning from them. Many of them became, and remain, my friends.

No worst part. Yes, I had some difficult days and difficult students, but so does every profession. My training and experience and the support from my teacher-friends helped me to cope and to turn some of those down times into positive experiences. I am always grateful that Providence put me in San Diego, at Poway High, and in English classes where I could grow along with the young people I taught.

Me: I fondly remember that circle! And I am glad to be one of the students who is now, thirty-five years later, a friend . . .

More on Monday . . .