One of the best things I can remember about all three of my schools is that the teachers there seemed to genuinely and authentically care about their students. For them it wasn’t a paycheck, it was a way of life or, in the Catholic school vernacular, a vocation. This idea of vocation brought more than just the normal classroom experiences, but rather nurturing and spiritual nourishing interactions that made my and all of my classmates formative years so very memorable — so much so that we still keep in contact today. However, with all the qualities of a know-it-all, self-professed-invincible, and sarcastic teenager, I would look at the normal human foibles of our teachers and state, “I will never do that” or “I will never be like that” or, the best one, “If I ever do that, just check me into a nursing home and be done with me.”
It’s that last one that causes me to grin because of a recent occurrence in my current situation. At St. Mary’s University where I did my undergrad and graduate work one of the very first people I ever met was Dr. Sims. If you can imagine the nicest, dad joke cracking, gray haired and gray bearded grandpa-looking stereotype, that would describe him. He was my advisor for a short time and a brilliant mathematician. By the time I sat in his Univariate Calculus I class he had already been at the University for over 30 years, so I wanted to learn anything and everything I could from him. His teaching was incredible as well — cracking jokes, throwing chalk across the room so it would hit the right number on the board, and getting students attention in the most unconventional ways for collegiate professors. He was amazing. In fact, his impact on me was so profound that I tend to teach my calculus students with many of the same tactics he used.
Nevertheless, there were some human traits that my observant self noticed and could not ignore. For example, when he gave a quiz or test he would sit at his table in the front of the classroom and work out the problems himself. I marveled at how fast he would move from one problem to the next without using an answer key or scratching out an entry — he wrote in ink, by the way. Later he would tell me that he would make those problems on the fly and never know the answer until he actually worked them out himself. However, every once in a while during the assessment you would hear the sound of a pen being thrown to the table top in exasperation. When we would look up to where the sound came from Dr. Sims would be looking down at his paper with his hand dangling and he shaking it with a grimace of pain. After about the second month of class, I asked him if he was OK and if he required anything because of the pain. He responded, “Oh it’s just this damn carpal tunnel I can’t get away from it and all the doctor wants to do is cut me open.” Having never heard of carpal tunnel before and trying to seek as much knowledge and wisdom from him as possible I inquired what as to what it was exactly. “It’s the plague of an old teacher who writes everything down. You’re going into education aren’t you, Richard? Whatever you do, don’t become an old teacher because this will happen.” To this, as was my custom, I somewhat flippingly said, “Don’t worry Doc I don’t plan on getting old anytime soon.” I remember meeting the young lady I was sweet on at the time outside the math building and I told her about the exchange. My exact next words were, “If I ever get like that, just check me into a nursing home and be done with me.”
Fast forward close to 25 years later. There I was working out the test problems in front of my class and after about the third time I threw my pencil onto the table top because of the pain in my hand, I found myself chuckling about that conversation with Dr. Sims. Then, one of my students came up to me as she was walking out and asked, “Sir, is your hand ok?” I responded, “Yes, my dear, it’s just the plague of an older teacher who writes everything down. Try to stay young, Mija.” Definitely not a lesson I learned from Dr. Sims…maybe there’s hope for her.
Comments
Post a Comment