15 Years Later

Ok, we tried this once.  I started out attempting to explain how and why I became a teacher, but I never really got there.  I got into reasons I didn’t become a priest, an artist, a writer, a mechanical engineer…or even a Major League Baseball player. 

Blame it on the 11:03 beer.  Here’s the real story.

Getting dropped off for college is a very weird feeling.  Mom is worried, happy, and running on weird emotions that you have no chance at understanding.  Dad is making all kinds of comments about sensible things like the strength of a bedframe and what side of the building your dorm room is on for sun, heat and cold. 

What is that all about?  Honestly, who cares about that stuff? 

You’re just hoping to get moved in without too many people noticing any interactions with your parents that might make you look bad.  You don’t know the rules yet.  Thanks for helping, Mom.  Great advice, Dad.  Love both of you guys.  Get out.  No hugs.

And then they’re in the car on the way home. Within seconds of the door closing it hits you that your safety blanket has just been moved quite a bit further across the room.  Maybe even into another room altogether.  It’s just you now.  You, some ugly furniture, off-white painted cinderblock walls, and a window that is clearly on the wrong side of the building.  You haven’t even met your new roommates yet.  This could easily switch you into panic mode.

But that thought passes swiftly because you’ve been waiting for this.  This is your moment.  Show me the roommates.  Show me the social gatherings.  Get me to my classes, sure, but let me find some new people to meet in the cafeteria, at the football game, and at the parties.  My name is Tim Larsen and I have arrived on campus.

Would you believe the luck?  One of my roommates landed a job at the 7-Eleven within walking distance of the dorm.  He transferred over from the same job in his high school town.  Apparently, he was Employee-of-the-Month quite a few times. 

Do you know what that gets you in college?  Unsupervised evening shifts on Fridays.  I was still 17 years old when I started that fall semester at Central Michigan University.  But I was buying a case of beer at a time out the back door of the 7-Eleven from my roommate who was working unsupervised shifts.  A local hero.  Employee-of-the-Month indeed.  We were the kings of the 4^th floor.

I dropped out after the first semester.  0.82 GPA.

It’s probably worth pointing out that I was the first in my family to even finish a semester of college.  There are 16 first cousins and at the time, even though I was one of the youngest, I was maybe only the third one to even register for classes.  So, when I got the letter from CMU that basically said I could come back if I really, really wanted to (but they didn’t advise it), it created a stir. 

Suffice it to say…I dropped out.  I stayed home and worked full time for the winter and spring and hated it.  Mom was devastated.  I don’t think Dad even knew what to do.  He talked about doing more chores around the house.  I’m still not sure how that made any sense.  Aunt Kitty, well, she suggested the priesthood of course.  During those months, it was clear to me that I was destined for an unfulfilling life burdened with toil and regret.  So I pushed in the clutch and downshifted.

I was a guy built for community college.

That next fall, to my mother’s great delight, I scaled work hours back to part-time and became a full-time student at Schoolcraft Community College.  I saw where my life was heading otherwise and realized that this was the only direction. 

Though I had signed up for (and dropped out of) Calculus for Engineers at CMU, I took a test and only placed into Precalculus for Schoolcraft College.  Father Willem would have lost his shit.  One’s follicles cringe at the thought. 

But I took that class seriously this time around.  And English.  And Science.  And Social Studies.  I didn’t see another option for a future at that point, so I went at it hard.  Dean’s list.  Not once, but four straight times. 

Two very big moments in my life happened during that stretch of profound Larsen collegiate academic achievement.  One: in my second semester, I met two teachers that would inspire me in a way that I still haven’t outgrown.  And two: I took a job at the school tutoring math students enrolled in classes I had already taken.  (Sound familiar?)

I saw two teachers who wanted to understand the students in front of them and use that background information to motivate them.  I saw grace, compassion, and an excitement about being in the ordinary, worn-out classrooms we were in.  Not for the rooms, not for the subject matter.  They were there for us on a level I hadn’t experienced before.  A Calculus teacher and an English teacher were bringing it.  I didn’t get my hair pulled once and I never fell asleep in class.  Funny thing is, I can’t remember either one of their names. 

Let’s call the Calculus teacher Mrs. Udall because I think that’s pretty close.  It was very clear that she enjoyed what she was doing for a living, but even more so, she enjoyed watching us succeed.  So instead of just writing notes, she talked us through how to learn the material.  She was more of a graceful, encouraging guide than an instructor. 

And she smiled a lot when we got things right.  She stopped and explained from a different point of view if we got things wrong.  She enjoyed our personalities and used what she had learned about them to further our conversations about how we were learning Calculus.  I’d never had a teacher do anything like that before.  As opposed to dropping out of calculus for Engineers at CMU, I got an A in her class this time around.  Mom was thrilled.

Let’s call the English teacher David Andrews.  That’s probably not even close to being right.  He taught English Composition 102 and had no interest at all in reading boring papers.  Everything about his appearance was very ordinary.  He wasn’t all that tall, he wasn’t skinny or overweight.  Did he wear glasses?  I don’t remember.  But never once did he have his collared shirt tucked in.  While his appearance was rather ordinary, his approach to teaching was not. 

David Andrews covered the material we were supposed to learn seemingly as a side interest.  What he wanted from us was some seriously creative and inspired writing.  So instead of starting class with a discussion on how to construct a proper thesis sentence and introductory paragraph, this man started off class with some kind of philosophical parable with an unresolved conflict. 

Then he fostered a lively conversation about ethics and morality.  This would go on for quite a while because everyone wanted to contribute.  You couldn’t help yourself.  Then when class was just about over, he’d stop the conversation and tell us to go home and write a thesis and an introductory paragraph about our stance on the morality issue. 

He wanted inspired writing, so he inspired us.  Every day.  I will never be as good at what I do as he was in that classroom.  And like Mrs. Udall, David Andrews made it clear that he liked every one of us.  He was happy when we wrote well, and he stopped and guided us when we didn’t.  In English Composition 102, I got an A and a complete reset on how to learn. 

He was a rogue teacher in the English department that didn’t seem to care about the rules and policies of being an English teacher.  He cared about the results.  Our results.  I loved it.

Those were two very influential people in my education.  But neither one of them orchestrated the incident that became the reason I made the decision to become a math teacher.  For that, we have to go from the classroom to the Learning Resource Center (or the LRC for those of us who worked there).

It’s the spring semester of 1992.  I’m making $5 an hour sitting in the LRC helping 3 to 6 adult students at a time (one I ended up dating for a while, but we can cover that story later).  I’m killing my tests in class.  Killing ‘em.  A guy comes in that’s trying to get past Math 095.  It’s one of those lower level math classes that you have to pay for, but you don’t actually get credit towards graduating. 

He’s making some ugly mistakes along the way and as he talks about it, I can almost hear the wheel turning in his head.  Not wheels, wheel.  This man is not gifted at math, let’s just leave it at that. 

He is tired.  He is frustrated.  He’s thinking about giving up because he’s starting to accept that he can’t do it.  His name is Frank.  He can’t get past this class on his own.  He knows it and I know it.  His teacher probably knows it too.  So what do we do?  Stay late and sharpen the pencils.

Frank and I got through that class.  He was older than me.  Quite a bit older.  I found out after several weeks that he needed the class to get a certification for a job that he already had but was afraid to lose.  The moment he came into the Learning Resource Center and showed me his passing semester grade was a game-changing joy in my life.  I didn’t do it.  Frank did it.  But his smile told a different story to everyone in the LRC.

So I saw a Math teacher and an English teacher walk down boring hallways in an unimpressive community college environment.  I saw them walk into drab classrooms filled with questionable students and light fires.  Inspire.  Provoke.  Relate.  Think.  They did it with smiles.  Meanwhile, I helped quite a few people get through math classes that they were struggling with that year.  I watched Frank walk out of the LRC for that last time with a smile on his face and a passing grade in his hand.  Somehow he looked taller.  I also smiled quite a bit that day.  And I thought to myself, “I have an idea….”

So there you have it.  I tried this story once and didn’t bring it home (kinda like my first attempt at college).  But we got there this time around.  I have one last thought before we wrap this up.

It was Mrs. Udall that first put me in front of a classroom to teach.  I saw her in the hallway one day while I was on my way to a Calc II class with a different teacher.  She asked how everything was going and I told her that becoming a math teacher was possibly on my radar.  She offered that when I finished Calc III, if I was still thinking about a teaching career, I could take over her Calculus class for one day to see if I liked it. 

I took her up on that.  Thinking back on it, I probably didn’t do very well.  It is likely that she had to reteach everything I covered that day.  But she enjoyed having me do it anyway.  And so did I. 

You could say that she’s the one that lit the fire.  But what was so great about her was that she wouldn’t see it that way at all.  She would tell you that I was the one that lit my own fire, she just stood around and made sure it didn’t go out.