Teachers take us back to square one

As I write this, the family is planning a surprise party for my wife.

As you read it, the party will be over — with a good time had by all.

After 38 years of teaching, Carol retires from the public school system. And after watching her fret and stew over her students, spend many nights loading and unloading kilns, and many weekends grading papers, I rain all over people who denigrate public school teachers.

She has done it right.

Carol's parents were public school teachers. So were mine.

We grew up seeing how it should be done.

Now, with Carol stepping down, I look at the teachers who did more than just touch my life — they forged it.

There was Mrs. Iverson in the third grade, who convinced this 9-year-old he might have a future in writing.

I think of Professor Hunsaker at Utah State. After I submitted a somber, melancholy poem for his class, he called me into his office — not to discuss the poem but to ask me if I was doing all right, to see if I had any personal problems he could help me with.

On the list of influences in my life, teachers occupy about 80 percent of the slots.

And they all helped me keep my eye on what was important.

They all kept reminding me of the basics.

I remember when my brother Val came home for a visit. He was in graduate school at the time and spent part of his time here working on his dissertation. At one point, he paused to sharpen his pencil.

"Don't push too hard," my mother said, "or you'll break the tip off."

My mother taught second grade.

She worried about the basics.

But then, in the end, that's what teachers do.

Yes, the plays of David Mamet are wonderful, but can anything really touch the wonder of Shakespeare's "King Lear"?

And then there's my wife, Carol, the art teacher.

Yes, she tells her students, the drip paintings of Jackson Pollock are exciting, but can anything ever equal the Sistine Chapel?

Teachers keep us grounded. The get us back to square one.

As for my brother Val and that pencil, we laughed about it at the time. But knowing Val, I half suspect if Mom hadn't said anything, he would have broken off the lead in the sharpener.

Just as knowing myself, without teachers like her to keep me mindful of the basics, I probably would have, too.

e-mail: jerjohn@desnews.com