Recently, a statewide meeting of FTA chapters was held in Columbia, Missouri. Each year, hundreds of potential teachers gather to be informed and inspired about their future roles in education. A summary of this year's event can be found at the MSTA website.
Below are the reflections of MSTA Assistant Editor Rachel Webb. I'll bet she wasn't the only adult at the meeting to be touched by the keynote speaker's words.
" I had a really hard time sitting through this year's FTA meeting.
The theme was Future Teachers, Future Heroes. In his engaging keynote address, Troy Garrison advised those attending to go back to their schools and express their gratitude to a teacher who had been a hero in their lives.
I thought back to my school days and thought of an obvious answer. My dad. I also thought of Mr. O. And I began to have a hard time keeping myself together.
For 30 years, Mr. O taught in the classroom next to my father's at a suburban Detroit high school. Mr. O was brilliant (like my dad). He could have easily kept up with any of the literature professors I had in college and probably could have outdone many of them (like my dad). He even looked the part with a trademark salt and pepper beard and jackets that had suede arm patches. He and my dad spent many hours in the English teachers' lounge extolling on Shakespeare, Hemingway, Fitzgerald. The kind of writers that English teachers are supposed to extol upon.
My dad told me of one incident, a few years before they retired. They were in a particularly heated and in-depth discussion of Macbeth. They were using big words. Discussing subtext and allegory at length. One of the youngest teachers on staff sat in awe quietly, until she finally piped up with, "Yeah, that's a neat story."
They had a hard time keeping a straight face. She was absolutely right. Macbeth is neat.
They both retired years ago, but still met for coffee and literary sparring matches.
As it stands right now, Mr. O is not expected to live out the week. The cancer that began invading his body when I was in high school has finally taken over. My dad visits his hospital room every day. Some days he knows who my father is and some days he doesn't.
Today he looked at my father and said, "Help me." When my father asked what he wanted help with, he said, "I want to go home."
My dad's heart sank. Not even a hero could deliver that promise. Sometimes being a hero is about inspiring and engaging. Sometimes it's about holding the hand of another hero who inspired and engaged so many for so long."
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