Truth about teachers

Hearing of the wholesale displacement of students in Louisiana and

Mississippi brings home how fortunate we are here, where school’s

back in and the teachers are back too.

I’ve experienced high school three times, once for me, once for

Keaton and once for Katie, and I suspect that if I’d had my

children’s teachers when I was growing up, I’d make more sense today.

In general, I admire teachers more than I used to. In fact, I

sometimes think I’d like to teach something -- Vintage TV Western

Appreciation, say -- but I doubt if I could handle the strain.

It’s tough up there day after day at the head of the class. You’ve

got a captive audience, yes, but their interests usually lie

elsewhere. If you don’t bring your subject to life you can lose the

house pretty easily, and then they’ll start focusing on any

mannerisms you might have. The only thing I remember my chemistry

teacher saying is “nukelar.”

Students group their teachers into the good, the bad, the mean,

the weird and the boring. Sometimes these classifications overlap.

I had a band teacher, Mr. Nechoda, who suffered horribly from the

disparity between the ideal music he heard in his head and what we,

his students, played.

A passionate man, he once became so disgusted with our playing at

rehearsal that he flung his music stand across the room, narrowly

missing the assistant director.

On another occasion, in a far-seeing, philosophical mood, he said,

“Everybody in this room is gonna die.” He meant “eventually,” but I

thought he might mean “today.”

I was in his brass section, and even now the sight of a French

horn fills me with dread. But our first chair player went on to

become a highly regarded professional, so Mr. Nechoda’s dynamic style

couldn’t have hurt him. It may have sparked him.

Which leads me to the teacher classification I left out above: the

inspirational. These are the teachers who instill or encourage a love

of their subject and end up guiding you to your vocation.

I once believed that if you’re lucky, you get one such teacher in

life, but I now believe you can get up to half a dozen, because

Katie’s had several.

Either the teachers are getting more memorable, or we’re lucky

here.

Of course, you need a personality match. One student’s inspiration

is another’s nightmare. Mr. Wingler, my English teacher, encouraged

me to write, and now you can’t shut me off till I run out of space.

But sometimes I can still see Mr. Nechoda coming toward me, wading

through the woodwinds to find the kid who screwed up the

oom-pah-pahs.