Teachers

“Good teachers don’t teach subjects; they teach people.”

Among the many winning lottery tickets that life has dealt me, great teachers rank towards the top.

From home to public school to professional life, I have so many wonderful teachers to thank. Here are a few:

Thomas Chaddock, 4^th grade, ’92 – ’93

I still remember the relief and excitement I felt when my mom told me I’d be in Mr. Chaddock’s class. Through older friends, I knew that Mr. Chaddock was the teacher to get: strict, but very, very good. Top lesson: people have short attention spans, so be concise.

Kent Jeffery, 5^th grade, ’93 – ’94

Kent was my fifth grade social studies teacher. He once caught me in a lie so offensively obvious and unnecessary (a “sorry” would’ve sufficed) that he threw his binder on the floor and shouted me out of the classroom. This probably wouldn’t fly by today’s teaching standards, but I’m glad it happened. I redeemed myself enough to get a job from him four years later, painting houses alongside John Aris and Dave Mahoney. Lesson learned: always take responsibility for your actions.

Mrs. Parke, 6^th grade, ’93 – ’95

Mrs. Parke taught a “gifted and talented” pullout class during my fifth and sixth grade years. She introduced me to the world wide web (highlights: Mosaic, Yahoo!, Lycos, Mark’s Godzilla Page) and is the first teacher I can recall who encouraged students to depart from convention. She let me read underneath my desk, which for a fifth grader felt very liberating and avant-garde.

Tim Crisafulli, 7^th grade social studies, ’95 – ’96

Tim was the coolest teacher any of us had ever seen. He was funny almost to the point of self-deprecation, but he took his work very seriously. His enthusiasm for learning was off the charts—enough to captivate a room full of twelve-year-olds. I’ve forgotten most of his lessons but I’ll never forget the mindset he brought to them: the world is an interesting place, so be curious.

Ronald Searle, 9^th grade biology, ’97 – ’98

Mr. Searle taught his subject well, but when it came to science, I was a lousy student.

While I didn’t share his enthusiasm for biology, I shared his enthusiasm for Apple computers. We bonded over MacAddict magazine, favorite shareware, and Wintel jokes. When Apple announced the iMac in May of 1998, Mr. Searle was the first person I talked to about it.

His classroom subject would never hold my attention, but we found another way to connect and he found another way to nudge me along a productive path.

Timothy Burns – College Prep Writing, Fall ’00

In addition to reviewing my college admissions essays and other course assignments, Tim guided my writing through a fragile period in my life. My mom was terminally ill and a close family friend died partway through the semester.

Somehow both delicately and forcefully, Tim pushed me to write about those things. He pushed me to write as a way to make sense of the complicated thoughts and feelings storming inside my head. While he was always supportive, he wasn’t afraid to call out a half-effort or poorly structured argument.

Before Tim, I thought of writing as something done only for a letter grade. Through Tim, I learned to use writing to clarify my own thinking.

Jerry Smith and Bill Aris, XC/T&F, ’97 – ’01

Jerry was my first high school coach (’97 – ’99) and Bill was my last (’99 – ’01). I don’t know where or who I’d be without them.

Jerry got me on the track and got me to care about something more than I cared about my own comfort and convenience. Bill got me to do the work and show up when it counted.

Together, they built one of the best running programs in the history of high school sports. I feel so lucky to have been a part of it.

Mark McGuigan, Economics, ’00 – ’01

Mark taught my senior-year economics class. I recall a relaxed but engaged learning environment. He made economics accessible and fun.

To teach us about sunk costs, he told us about his decision to leave law school after only one week. I often think of sunk costs when making tough decisions, and when I do, I think of Mark.

There was one unintended consequence of Mark’s excellent teaching: he inadvertently convinced hundreds of graduating seniors into thinking they’d be econ majors, only to realize in college that they didn’t like economics as much as they liked Mark McGuigan.

Gene Hendrix, Organization & Management, ’10

I met Gene through the Berkeley Extension business certificate program. He taught a Saturday class in Redwood City, which I expected to be an uneventful checkpoint on my way to a top-tier business school.

Gene shattered that assumption in the first class. He was the most animated, opinionated, and unconventional teacher I ever had. His courses (I went on to take a second) were the most active, engaging, and memorable in the program. I’d work all week long and want to go to his Saturday workshops. They were that good.

Gene took “learn by do” one step further: learn by try. Learning wasn’t passive, theoretical, or time-bound; it was active, applied, and never-ending. He gave me the courage to skip business school and instead pursue on-the-job learning. My brain and bank account are much richer for it.

For me, at least, these teachers made an impact not by the subjects they taught but by virtue of who they were and what they were about. The subjects were almost incidental. They were the things that got us to the thing.

I don’t claim to know the purpose of education, but part of it, I think, is helping people discover things they love to do, teaching them to do those things well, and in a small but significant way, tending a collective curiosity that never goes out but is always under siege.

To the teachers listed above as well as the countless others who tend the fire, thank you.