Reflections On The Person/The Educator
The Teacher
In the beginning, from childhood, I was not called to teach (my mother wanted me to be a mortician-steady work, she said.) Unlike Saul on the road to Damascus, I was not struck down by a dazzling light. Instead, I was on the road to NO where, a professional student with no goals, perfectly content with half-day classes and "gentlemen-C-s" each term. But then my seventeen year old wife became pregnant and, like Paul, I too totally changed direction. I overloaded courses, went to school days, nights and summers, borrowed money, drove daily from Farmington to Cape, 160 miles round trip, and declared a major in art education. I was going to become a teacher! Eureka!
In the new beginning was unbridled enthusiasm. This idealism evolved into a teaching style where enthusiasm became my key for motivating students and that part of my teaching style has never changed.
I started at Desloge High School in 1960 for $3500 a year, teaching 11th grade English, American History and 7th grade spelling in the cafeteria. I had no degree in anything but I was elated. The first full time art job came the next year at Arcadia Valley High. I was hooked. I became a school-a-holic, totally obsessed with being a teacher. My family would join me every Sunday-all day at school after I had been there till 5 the first six days. I couldn't wait for Monday morning.
During the preceding thirty-two years the price has been extremely high for being so career oriented, so obsessed with teaching and so self-centered. It cost two broken marriages, depression, burn out, drinking, the singles scene, an enormous painful chasm between my son and me, not yet fully bridged and untold past scars too painful to recall and far too numerous to mention. This obsession with teaching was not a conscious decision but a career pattern drifted into by an insecure overachiever.
Now I try to balance my life; professional and personal, remaining ever cognizant of the need for balance, and values to live by. Values like: God, love, marriage, home, trust, children, honesty, integrity, responsibility, commitment and perseverance to name a few, important in my life.
In teaching, I still believe in a total seven day week commitment (but only during the term of the contract). I believe in careful, advance planning, always with a plan B. I believe an art teacher must be a producing artist. I believe the teacher must be in charge and convey that attitude. I still believe misbehavior must be met with an immediate consequence. I believe the art teacher must genuinely care about each student and demonstrate that on-going caring attitude, daily, treating each person fairly and always with respect. I believe the teacher is a role model in every way and he must be totally dedicated to the idea that teaching is the most important work in the world-the work of shaping the future. I believe in humor. It's generally the most healthy antidote I know. Often, I tell students - A clean mind (and body), A pure heart (free of malice), An easy smile, Amazing Grace And a sense of humor-will see us through, and they are required in art and life. I tell them this is not a dress rehearsal.
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