John Webster wrote:Roger, sometimes the best lessons you get from a teacher have nothing to do with the subject they teach.
I'm still learning that, thankfully, as former students from the 70's and 80's continue to contact me for meet-ups.
I just attended an impromptu one this past Saturday, when I noticed on the local News that a favorite breakfast haunt of several of the boys from my 1971 Eight Grade Class, two now with grandchildren, to which they had invited me several months ago for a first meet-up there, was scheduled to close, after the restaurant's 70yr. tenure.
Because the place was important to my former students, I felt I had to get to the restaurant early (6:30am) on the off-chance they might be there (they customarily met each Saturday at 9:am) also. Once parked at the curb, I called one of them from the car to say I was there thinking they might be also. He told me the official day for closing was actually the next day, Sunday, but that since I was there, he would contact the others and that they would try to be at the haunt quickly. They were (7:30am), though scheduled to travel to Queens, NY later that morning for their jobs.
Once again, they - at the own volition, not my instigation - reminisced about how I had affected their entire lives, infusing them with desire to achieve and overcome. They said they were very proud of me. Once again, I got "chocked-up" (quietly, inside myself, only) with humble joy and gratitude.
I can't go into the details of how they elucidated that their lives were so heavily affected by my efforts and presence in their classroom, but suffice it to say their thoughts were not about the academics for the eighth grade.
