A Life Touched By One Student
After Diana and I were married we moved
to Excelsior Springs where I was teaching. We only lived there for one year,
and during all of my teaching career following that year I always commuted. I
have driven many tens of thousands of miles. For the one year, however, I was
near to the school and often walked the hills of Excelsior Springs to make my
way to work.
On those walks I carried my "school stuff." Among the items was a blue folder upon which I had taped a "Teacher's Prayer" which I had found in some education periodical. This prayer asked that if I could only touch one life during my career, then my work would have purpose.
This prayer was my strength during that year. I was newly married. Diana became pregnant and eventually our son was born. There was a lot that occurred in those twelve months, there was a lot of pressure, and that prayer helped me in difficult times.
The beauty of that prayer is that that one special student had already passed through my life and from him I had grown, I had learned.
My teaching began the year before Diana and I were married. She was in college and I had come to El Dorado Springs for my first teaching assignment. I had seven offers for positions as there was a critical shortage of teachers in l966, the year I earned my degree. I chose El Dorado Springs and the choice changed my life.
I had a number of special students that year. I lived directly across the street from the high school art classroom. Soon after the school year began I had two students who often came to my home in the evenings. They were exceptionally fine art students and loved to work on their projects. They weren't friends as such, but they became better known to each other through the year. One or the other would knock and say, "Mr. Baker, can I go to the school and work on my painting?" Yes, of course.
Then, when we were at work in the classroom, there'd be a tap on the window, and the other young man and his girlfriend would be asking if they could come in to work also. The boys' girlfriends would work on their homework while the boys painted or sculpted. One of those young ladies is now a respected teacher in our school system.
The one young man eventually became my brother-in-law. His sister once asked him at the Knob Noster football game, "Who's the big kid with the hat you're sitting with?" "That's "B" my art teacher," he said. That was his way of addressing me. I came to understand the "B" was said out of deep respect.
The other special young man did beautiful paintings. In fact everything that he touched was done in a loving, almost tender manner. He was not easily satisfied. If something did not seem just right, it was redone. I admired his perseverance. I learned from it.
He accomplished much that school year. Toward spring he confided in me that he wanted to become a teacher. I was pleased, for I knew that he had that "something special" needed for teaching others. I worked with him to make his application to college and in filling out a number of forms. I suffered with him through some difficult "situations" he encountered.
And then our special time together was ended. At 12:30 A.M. another teacher, Paul Edginton, awoke me. Our student, our friend was dead; killed in a tragic automobile accident along with his mother.
The day of his funeral I placed his final unfinished painting on an easel in the west window of the art room. His English teacher brought a lovely crystal vase filled with magnificent peonies and she displayed a book opened to a special poem in honor of our student.
After Mr. Edginton and I assisted in taking his body to its place of rest, I sat on the porch of Fr. Rosenberger's home and cried. I understood that rather than touching that young man's life, he had touched mine. He had been my teacher. He had been my guide. When I visit his grave, I remember his perseverance. I recall his easy-going manner. I can see his smile and hear his laughter, but most importantly, in those private moments, I thank him for being a good teacher.
By our continual and earnest pursuit of character we bring our own deportment and conduct frequently in review. . . . This constant habit of surveying ourselves, as it were, in reflection, keeps alive all the sentiments of right and wrong, and begets, in noble creatures, a certain reverence for themselves as well as others, which is the surest guardian of every virtue.
--David Hume
On those walks I carried my "school stuff." Among the items was a blue folder upon which I had taped a "Teacher's Prayer" which I had found in some education periodical. This prayer asked that if I could only touch one life during my career, then my work would have purpose.
This prayer was my strength during that year. I was newly married. Diana became pregnant and eventually our son was born. There was a lot that occurred in those twelve months, there was a lot of pressure, and that prayer helped me in difficult times.
The beauty of that prayer is that that one special student had already passed through my life and from him I had grown, I had learned.
My teaching began the year before Diana and I were married. She was in college and I had come to El Dorado Springs for my first teaching assignment. I had seven offers for positions as there was a critical shortage of teachers in l966, the year I earned my degree. I chose El Dorado Springs and the choice changed my life.
I had a number of special students that year. I lived directly across the street from the high school art classroom. Soon after the school year began I had two students who often came to my home in the evenings. They were exceptionally fine art students and loved to work on their projects. They weren't friends as such, but they became better known to each other through the year. One or the other would knock and say, "Mr. Baker, can I go to the school and work on my painting?" Yes, of course.
Then, when we were at work in the classroom, there'd be a tap on the window, and the other young man and his girlfriend would be asking if they could come in to work also. The boys' girlfriends would work on their homework while the boys painted or sculpted. One of those young ladies is now a respected teacher in our school system.
The one young man eventually became my brother-in-law. His sister once asked him at the Knob Noster football game, "Who's the big kid with the hat you're sitting with?" "That's "B" my art teacher," he said. That was his way of addressing me. I came to understand the "B" was said out of deep respect.
The other special young man did beautiful paintings. In fact everything that he touched was done in a loving, almost tender manner. He was not easily satisfied. If something did not seem just right, it was redone. I admired his perseverance. I learned from it.
He accomplished much that school year. Toward spring he confided in me that he wanted to become a teacher. I was pleased, for I knew that he had that "something special" needed for teaching others. I worked with him to make his application to college and in filling out a number of forms. I suffered with him through some difficult "situations" he encountered.
And then our special time together was ended. At 12:30 A.M. another teacher, Paul Edginton, awoke me. Our student, our friend was dead; killed in a tragic automobile accident along with his mother.
The day of his funeral I placed his final unfinished painting on an easel in the west window of the art room. His English teacher brought a lovely crystal vase filled with magnificent peonies and she displayed a book opened to a special poem in honor of our student.
After Mr. Edginton and I assisted in taking his body to its place of rest, I sat on the porch of Fr. Rosenberger's home and cried. I understood that rather than touching that young man's life, he had touched mine. He had been my teacher. He had been my guide. When I visit his grave, I remember his perseverance. I recall his easy-going manner. I can see his smile and hear his laughter, but most importantly, in those private moments, I thank him for being a good teacher.
By our continual and earnest pursuit of character we bring our own deportment and conduct frequently in review. . . . This constant habit of surveying ourselves, as it were, in reflection, keeps alive all the sentiments of right and wrong, and begets, in noble creatures, a certain reverence for themselves as well as others, which is the surest guardian of every virtue.
--David Hume
(January 2000)
Posted: Mon - September 27, 2004 at 09:17 PM
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"Chance favors only the prepared mind." - Louis Pasteur
"Art arises from basic needs-a strong need to express and celebrate our everyday events.
In a museum most people spend less than twenty seconds looking at a work of art."
"Art arises from basic needs-a strong need to express and celebrate our everyday events.
In a museum most people spend less than twenty seconds looking at a work of art."
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