With the close of last school year, I completed my 30th campaign in education. Each of those years has been filled with joy and sorrow, challenges and successes, ups and downs and a ton of stories worth sharing. My (True) Life in Education Thus Far will detail 30 or so of those stories. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed living (most) of them!
FIRST NAME BASIS
SEPTEMBER 14, 2022
Returning to my alma mater, Regis Jesuit High School, was something of a dream come true. I was 24 with (almost) two years of teaching under my belt. I had moved back to my hometown. I was hired in a group of teachers that included one of my high school classmates.
I was very excited. Teaching at Regis Jesuit had been a goal of mine since my high school days and, though the school had moved, it was still familiar and comfortable.
Well, mostly comfortable. There was one challenge that was very much that: a challenge.
For a long time before I was hired, for decades in all truth, there had been very, very little turnover at Regis Jesuit. The stability in staff was likely aided by the fact that enrollment had tapered off for years and, when teachers left, there was not always a need to replace them. Therefore the staff when I was hired was comprised of almost entirely familiar faces.
Very familiar faces.
Many of these were faces I had stared at for hours on end when I was their student and was in their classes.
And they were now my colleagues.
That was a challenge. These were women and men who had inspired me to go into teaching, educators who were legends in my mind. Mr. Taylor, Mr. Saulino, Mrs. Carson, Mr. Buckley, Sister Benita, Mr. Gold, Mr. Lechuga, the list went on and on and on. I was standing in the shadow of these giants and it was so much easier to be there when I was on the East Coast.
“You’re going to have to do it.” Mr. Taylor really said to me one morning.
Ralph Taylor was one of the reasons I wanted to teach. He was a Regis institution, a talented teacher with an encyclopedic knowledge of English and a ready wit. I had been in his team-taught American History/Literature class for just over a semester as a student and it was, perhaps, the most impactful educational experience I had on that side of the desk.
“I’m going to have to do what, Mr. Taylor?” I know I replied.
“You’re going to have to call us by our first names, Jeff.”
It would take me months to develop enough comfort and confidence to do that, months of working alongside them, months of learning they were people – wonderful people, but just people. Just teachers trying to do the best job they could.
Just like me.
