By learning you will teach;
by teaching you will understand.
Latin Proverb
by teaching you will understand.
Latin Proverb
This is not an essay about me. Or about me as a teacher. But it is about a teacher. And teaching something for the first time is the thing that
reminded me of him. So here’s the
back story. On Saturday, I taught
my first photography class. It was
a Composition in the Field class, and I shepherded five students in and around
Deep Ellum to explore the world through our lenses, finding new and interesting
ways to compose images, learning the rules and then learning how to break
them. I was humbled by the
difference between using the tools and techniques that are so ingrained after
eight years of shooting I take them for granted, and actually teaching them to
someone else. Teaching them in a
way that makes sense. It’s not
easy. I think I did a pretty okay
job, at least as evidenced by the shots I glimpsed on the backs of their
cameras during the day. And they
all seemed to get what I was saying.
No head scratching or funny looks, except maybe when I struck some
strange poses to prove a point here and there. At the end of three sweaty hours in the sun, I had an empty
water bottle (or juice pack, as one student jokingly called my metallic water
pouch) and a class with full camera cards.
Last night, as I was falling asleep. I thought about writing a blog about
teaching for the first time. And
then I thought about my teachers.
And then I remembered him.
The very best teacher I had during my school years was a man
named John Killion. He taught
sophomore year high school English.
Taught it with the kind of exuberance and enthusiasm I’ve never seen
since, outside of the fiction John Keating in the movie Dead Poet’s Society.
The odd similarity between their names is not lost on me. The first day I sat in Mr. Killion’s
class, amidst my female classmates, we didn’t know what to expect. He was new to the school, we would be
his first students at the all girls prep school I attended. An overstuffed arm chair with hideous
upholstery sat wedged up against the teacher’s desk. This was something new. And then in he strolled. With a football in his hand.
“I’m going to throw this at you, when you catch it, say your
name, then toss it back to me.” We
all looked a little aghast, I think.
Football? Did he not see
the room full of girls before him?
The ball was in the air before we had time to think, and in this way, we
went around the room and introduced ourselves to this strange new teacher. The methodology would continue throughout
the school year – he would throw the ball at you when he wanted you to answer a
question. We learned a lot of
English, not to mention we became pretty adept at catch. Smarter and more athletic, all at
once. This guy knew what he was
doing.
The arm chair, we would come to learn, was his favorite
perch for lecturing. He’d sit in
sometimes, but would usually be up on an armrest or the back of the chair, his
feet wedged into the seat cushion that could only be improved in appearance by
some shoe scuffing. When really
excited about a subject, Mr. Killian was prone to standing on the chair, and he
would practically vibrate with enthusiasm, rallying the class better than Tom
Cruise on Oprah. If you had
something to say – an idea, an essay to present, you might get invited into the
chair. And in between classes, we
all hung out there, because it was the coolest classroom in the whole upper
school hallway.
Mr. Killion had a pet pot-bellied pig. His name was Bob B. Q. He often came to class to visit us, dressed
in a sweater striped in our school colors of green and white. I think that was his attempt to pass
Bob off as a student, despite his gender and lack of adherence to proper
uniform code. He’d sit in his cage
and snort when he didn’t like your opinion of the latest short story.
Mr. Killion’s class was electric. You couldn’t help but want to learn, want to do well, want
to say something interesting. As
students we wanted to be so inspiring that we made him jump onto that
chair. But one of the things I
most remember is his quiet statement he made every test day. Over the rustle of paper and we passed
exams back down each line of desk and amidst the shuffle of skirts in seats as
we got comfortable and settled in to the task at hand, he would stand still,
hold out his hands as if holding something imaginary on them and smile.
“Ladies, I have a tray full of A’s for you. Have one, on me.”
It was an invitation to do our very best. It was an encouragement to try just a
little harder that we thought we could.
It was an assurance that we had the tools we needed to succeed that
day. It was a reminder that this
was just a test, something concrete, something simple. It was not life, it was just one moment
of one day.
Mr. Killion was haunted by personal demons. And during my senior year, he took his
own life. But he never brought
those demons into the classroom, he only brought light, humor, creativity and
encouragement. He taught us to be
better students and I think, most importantly, he taught us that learning
should be fun.
Now I understand.
So thank you, Mr. Killion, wherever you are now, for inspiring me to
always find joy in learning, to be the first person I think of when the word
teacher comes to mind and I can only hope that your wisdom stays with me
through any teaching opportunities that I may come across in the years
ahead.
I just knew this is who you were writing about when I read that it was a tribute to your favorite teacher. I feel exactly the same way :) Nicely written and thanks for jogging my memory on some of the details that had been lost for so many years.
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