Full Circle

Summer is nearly over as the new school year looms in my not-so-distant future. I will, quite happily, be standing in front of a high school classroom for the first time in over a year. In addition, I will continue to teach my college courses in the evening. The fall semester, it turns out, will be quite a busy one for me! Strangely, I find myself a bit anxious about standing in front of those high school classes. Oh, most of that anxiety is simply the desire to get to it – I’ve missed it horribly. The rest is nerves – I get them every time! Much like my short stint in community theater, when I paced backstage or broke out in a cold sweat prior to setting foot in front of the lights, I tend to run a bit high on adrenaline before the school year starts. Will I remember my lines? Just as suddenly as it begins, it will fade as I step before my students. The little kid in me, aiming to please, wanting to be liked, will step back and I will find myself transformed…into my father?!



Ouch! Okay, when did that happen? Truth be told, I noticed my father creeping in the very first moments I started teaching – he’s been there all along! This December will mark the sixth anniversary of my father’s death, yet he seems more present in my life than ever before. It’s not just physically either – I mean I have his chin, the shape and fullness of his mouth, the ever dwindling amount of hair, and his eyes, especially his eyes. They catch me off guard sometimes, looking back at me through every mirror. It’s more than even that – it’s his attitude, his approach to so many things. Where do I begin so you’ll understand? How do I sum up what I learned from him and hope to teach to my students?


My father was born on a potato farm in the northern tip of Maine…no, scratch that, too far back! Suffice to say, my father came from humble beginnings. The youngest of eleven surviving children, he received only a high school education before serving in the military during the Korean War. He returned, married my mother, and proceeded to have a brood of his own (I am the seventh of nine children). Life, it turns out, had plans that differed greatly from his. My father had wanted, at one point in his life, to be a lawyer and had life allowed it, I think he would have been a great one, perhaps even a better judge. He was, instead, a postal worker for over 30 years of his life. The last years of his career were in labor relations, which fulfilled, to some degree, his legal eagle desires. My father lived in the reality of life – you get what you get and you better make the best of it. He also struggled with his demons – his failures, real and perceived, and his pains. Some of his demons won out, some didn’t. Like most children, I tried to figure him out, to understand him, and to forgive him. There were times I hated him, times I adored him, and times I just didn’t get him. In the end, I discovered he was just a human being. No more, no less.


With my father, lessons were learned through discussion, by example, and by complete accident!

Lesson one – shoulder your responsibilities. We all have them, we can’t escape them (even if we shirk them, there remains a consequence), and we all need them to help shape and define us. Once you find yourself in a place of responsibility – face it, bear it, and make the best of it. This, my father did exceptionally well. He never wanted nine children. He never wanted a wife who struggled horribly with deep religious beliefs and debilitating depression. He never wanted to struggle with finances all of his life. This is, however, what he got and he took it on full-tilt. He did not run away. Don’t mistake me, he did not do it perfectly – no parent does. But he did face them as best he could, and he taught us to face them. You are responsible to look after your brother. You are responsible for your household chores. You are responsible to pass your grades and get a high school diploma. You are responsible for getting, paying, and maintaining your own car. I hated it at the time, but realized later how it shaped my approach to life and work. It’s a level of personal ethics I sometimes see as lacking in today’s youth. When did we forget to teach them of their responsibilities?


Lesson two – discipline is good, when it is doled out fairly. My father was quite strict, with nine children you have to be (well, as best as he could be, since chaos seemed to rule most days)! We had chores that could not be escaped. Additional sentences were doled out and served working in the garden, pulling weeds or stones or both. While he spanked and hit on occasion, he usually only needed to yell to scare the crap out of me. What my father did do, to his credit, was try to be fair. He aimed for the instigator, but didn’t ignore the participants! We all got our share (granted my older siblings seasoned our father for us, so we got a kinder, um, gentler, dad as we came of age). In adolescence, when he couldn’t just hit us or yell, he lectured, fairly, squarely, and honestly. These, more than anything else, come racing back to me as a teacher. If one thing would make my father laugh today, it would be knowing that I’m doling out those same lectures. He was, essentially, right. He “got” it and I finally get it, too!


Lesson three – that’s life – deal with it! In the face of a dying dream, what do you do? In a single conversation, my father shared his feeling of loss when he realized that law would not be something he would practice. The map of his life path had changed and there was nothing he could do about it. Nothing except let go of one dream and embrace another one. Unfortunately, the other dream remained murky at best. He did not have the benefit of creating a new one to pursue. Life hands you what it does and you have to take it – you don’t have a choice. Well, you do, but that choice isn’t often pretty. In the twilight of that dying dream, he could have left my mother and older siblings and raced off after it. That option, however, conflicted with lesson one, so it was a “no-go!” Later, life threw more at him. My mother’s increasing mental illness and eventual death, my siblings’ trouble with the law, the discord between many of us and our step-mother, and the list goes on. He practiced resiliency at a level that can be hard to fathom at times. “Life goes on,” he would say, and so it does. Resiliency is as important to teach today as any other skill and resonates in my teaching as much responsibility. They go hand-in-hand in my approach with students. Okay, stop chuckling back there Dad!


Lesson four – sometimes you win, sometimes you lose! This one my father taught more by example than actual discussion. Many of the challenges faced by my father sparked his internal demons – the feeling of failure, the lack of self-esteem and self-worth, the sense of helplessness and victimization, and the resentment and anger over his lost dreams. He would struggle with these all of his life, masking them with alcohol, taking them out on his children with angry words, and in other ways I’m sure we know nothing about. The key to demons is to fight – the battle can be unyielding, messy, and always unpleasant, but you fight regardless. My father lost some battles repeatedly – when the demons gang up, what can you do? His failures, however, provided me with a means to find success, or at least a truce with many of my own demons. Our students come to us with so many demons already on the field, like a scene from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and they are armorless, weaponless, and have no Gandalf the Grey to cast a spell. How we guide them can lead to treasure or ruin. Aim for the treasure every time. Face your losses with dignity and own them. If you own it, the demon has a harder time throwing it in your face!


These are only four lessons of the many I’ve learned from and through my father; others slip in and out as I face different challenges. Many help me, a few hinder me, but they all remain with me. As for my father, he’s there – in every classroom, sitting behind a desk, waiting to see what I’ll do next and watching his own reflection. Occasionally I hear him laugh and have to give him a stern look, until I realize it isn’t him, but me looking back from the other side of that mirror!