A HOF Teacher

I’m not sure if it’s true for all young people, but every kid I’ve ever known dreads this portion of the school year.

When I was growing up, the period between Labor Day and Thanksgiving -- when there are no school holidays and no breaks on the immediate horizon (bear with me Catholic kids – I know about All Saints Day) -- was always the toughest.

Fresh off a carefree summer, they get you up early in the morning. They have you keeping a tight, regimented schedule during the day. Along the way they build in a little play time in an effort to keep your spirits up.

Then it’s off to bed by 10, and you do it all over again tomorrow.

It’s a little like those awful business retreats we suffered through in the 1990s – only they last for weeks, not days.

As odious as the schedule sounds to a kid, there’s a benefit to experiencing this phenomenon: it prepares you for, oh, the next 50 years of your life in the workplace.

There’s another hidden plus to this long and grinding road.

In these first few weeks of the school year, you get to know your teacher, for better or for worse. You start to get a read on their personality, their quirks. You pick up on their likes and dislikes, what you might be able to get away with -- their tolerance level.

(I should point out here that teachers no doubt are sizing up their students in a similar manner during this period).

Like most of you, my teachers ran the personality spectrum from, frankly, a little scary, to unintentionally demeaning, to inspirational.

The scary ones were unforgettable.

One of my grade school teachers experienced an epic, frightening meltdown in front of our class one day. For some reason, he reached the boiling point up in front of class, walked over to a student’s desk and with a huge swipe of his forearm, knocked all of the books off the young man’s desk and onto the floor. Then he kicked one of the books, picked up another and flung it across the room at another student, hitting him in the head, before storming out of the room.

We kids talked about the incident – acting it out on the schoolyard -- for months.

I’m not sure what was going on in his life to prompt this outburst, but as I recall, he was back in the classroom the next day – no apologies, no explanations.

Today someone would have whipped out a camera, recorded the whole episode and posted it on the Internet, where it would have gone viral and been the subject of cable talk shows 48 hours later. And of course, the teacher would have lost his job.

The unintentionally demeaning teachers were some of the worst. I’ll never forget the one who sat at his desk and, in front of the whole class and for no reason, called one his students ugly.

Way to destroy the fragile self-esteem of a 17-year-old kid there, teach!!

But the bad teachers, at least in my world, were the exception.

The good ones also left a lasting impression – in a nice way.

My 7th grade teacher, Robert Lehr, Nottingham Elementary School in South St. Louis, was tough and demanding, but very fair. A high school English teacher named Anna Lutz would occasionally read aloud to the class some of the stuff I wrote – never embarrassing me by mentioning my name – as examples of interesting writing. A college instructor named Sally Jackoway did the same thing.

That was pretty cool stuff.

The foundational member of my personal Hall of Fame is a teacher who, ironically, has the acronym for Hall of Fame branded into his surname.

Ron Hof was an English teacher at Bishop DuBourg High School in St. Louis when I was a student there in the 1970’s.

He was a big guy – but not imposing in either stature or demeanor. I’d had him as my English teacher for a couple of years, and somewhere along the way he had discovered that I wanted to be a writer – in one form or another – when I grew up.

As was the standard in every English class I ever took, Mr. Hof had us writing essays. One of those compositions apparently resonated with him because, in the margin of the paper I submitted, he wrote:

“Good job! I encourage you to pursue your dreams of becoming a writer!”

I’ve long forgotten the essay that elicited the comment, but I’ve never forgotten the words. It was just a simple sentence, but it meant the world to me.

And those words kept me going throughout a career that has always leaned heavily on good writing.

High school can be an awful experience when you’re a gangly, skinny kid with glasses and braces – a kid who’s not much of an athlete, who does ok academically, but isn’t quite National Honor Society material.

Such was my life in high school.

So many of us drifted through the halls of our schools – classroom to classroom, over and over - wondering what life would look like when we got older, trying to find out just who we were. Daunted by the steepness of life’s learning curve.

We looked for guidance.

Words like “I encourage you to pursue your dreams” provided a compass. They gave us the confidence to pursue a goal. And in some cases, the validation that we were on the right track.

I think about those few inspirational words every now and then when I read news stories about young people who drift into bad places with bad behaviors.

Would a few simple words like the ones Mr. Hof wrote in the margin of my essay make a difference for these kids? Maybe not. But maybe so.

Maybe some kids just need someone to tell them, “I’ve noticed you are good at this. You should really pursue your dream.”

Maybe some kids need a HOF teacher and a few kind and inspirational words written in the margin.

I was lucky to have had one.

Thanks Ron.

And as always, thanks for reading.