McCrystle

The Manbear asked, based on GTTs Teacher theme, if I would post something he wrote about his favorite teacher. Which, um, duh.

—

In my years of schooling I’ve had quite a few teachers who stood out as wonderful, a few who stood out as terrible, and a lot were too average to remember clearly. There is one, however that stands out in my mind far above all the rest.

I only ever had one class with him. It was my Senior year of High School and in all honesty I don’t remember a whole lot of the content of the class. The class was titled Conflict in the Modern World, and as you might guess, it covered the various wars, revolutions, genocides and uprisings happening around the globe. Lots of talk about Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East and the historical setting in which these modern conflicts were happening. What made the class though, and why I still consider it one of the most important moments in my educational history, was the teacher: Mr. Patrick McCrystle:

Mr. McCrystle took his job as an educator very seriously but considered his job to be comprehensive, not topical. He made sure that we were not just learning about the struggles in Myanmar and Sudan, but also that we were learning what it meant to be responsible, thinking, adult men.

Going into his classroom was always an exercise in the unexpected. Most often we’d sit down and hear about something that was in line with the course description, but there were days, oh those glorious days!, when he’d pull one of the empty desks to the front of the class, turn it around and set himself right on top of it. These were the days where I really learned.

One day, perched awkwardly on the top of that desk he read “The Laughing Man” from J. D. Salinger’s Nine Stories. Then discussed it with us, asked our views, talked about similarities in our own lives and used it to connect with us personally.

He told us of his travels. Of running the bulls (and nearly dying) in Pamplona with one of his closest friends. Being the last through the gate, mere yards in front of the first bull and the shower of flowers and money that rained on them from the onlooking crowd. Of visiting Northern Ireland during The Struggles and trying to get some official IRA literature. Ducking into a half-sized door at the end of an alley and walking a long, narrow, dimly-lit hallway to a small waiting room; the only other occupant a large, rough man who looked very frightened and who’s knee had obviously been shot at some point in the past. Stories about a life well lived, if not lived wisely.

Another day he spent lampooning the Church of Scientology, explaining its roots, crazy, money-driven, sometimes murderous practices and the utterly interesting and insane life of the religion’s founder L. Ron Hubbard.

The day that most stands out was one he spent talking about fatherhood. I went to an all-male, Jesuit College Prep school, and Mr. McCrystle though it was important for all of us young men, many of whom would likely one day be fathers ourselves, to know something of fatherhood.

First he told stories about his own father, an F.B.I. agent and hardass of a man. His father would often show up to his soccer games and, not thinking of how other people would react, remove his jacket. There he would stand on the sideline on a sunny summer day, yelling encouragement to the kids, criticism at the refs, all with his holstered sidearm strapped securely under his arm. Mr. McCrystal, then only Patrick, would note the 15 feet of empty space space surrounding his father and would run to the sideline and plead with him to put his coat back on.

He also talked about himself as a father and about his young daughters. At that time they were probably about 4 and 6 years old, and Mr. McCrystle seemed to be doing a very fine job of raising them.

There was a rule in his house: you could play with any toys you liked throughout the day, but before you went to bed you had to put them away. It wasn’t something that he or his wife made habit of reminding them; the girls knew they had to clean up, so they either would or they wouldn’t. If they didn’t clean up though, then the parents would. If the parents had to though, the toys would get put away in a different closet and were unavailable for use the next day. The girl’s often complained, but they didn’t get their toys that day. Its just the way it worked.

The sword cut both ways though. On more than one occasion Mr. McCrystal would change into his running shorts and go to the closet for his running shoes and not find them there. “Has anyone seen my running shoes?” “You didn’t put them away last night, Daddy! You can’t have them back ‘till tomorrow!” He wouldn’t demand his daughters return his shoes. He wouldn’t find some other shoes to run in. He’d change back into his day clothes and not go running that evening because even though he’s the one who made them, he too had to follow the rules of the house.

Girl Talk Thursday – Teachers I have Loved (Too Much?)

I have two favorite teachers from high school who are almost opposites of each other. The third stood apart.

Ms Joe was tiny – all smiles and wit and quick jokes. She was very smart and very kind. She taught, among other things, Honors English. Everyone adored her. She made me love learning again and that was a nice thing to have. Ms Joe taught the sophomores, weeded out the trouble makers, the idiots, the kids who didn’t care, and helped those who did shine. She always listened, always noticed. She lived in a tree house and wore the crab hat I got her all day. She was willing to make fun of herself to make herself more accessible.

Ms Wolfe was terrifying. Mean and quick to snap, and smart. She made people cry in her class. AP Lit, AP American Government, AP Econ, AP American History – all classes I decided I wanted, tested into, and cried in because she taught them. And yet, we all secretly loved her. She scared the crap out of us and it helped us learn. ‘Cause if you didnt know the answer, she would point it out and no one wanted that. But we learned. And while she pretended to be a super hard ass, she also let us do short films instead of essays for some of our group projects, which were an amazing way to learn.

Ms Joe and Ms Wolfe taught my Paidea Program classes. The honors and AP English and History at a public school not known for its grades. If you wanted to learn though, they were there for you.

No one got below a 4 on any of the tests they gave the years I took them. The combination of Ms Joe’s loving coaxing treatment of literature paired with The Wolfe’s military tactics seemed to work wonders.

All of their students got into college, all were adequately prepared and, in some cases (mine!), over-prepared. Classes I took to “acclimate me” to college were easy. I described them as Crayon Classes to my mother, a term we still use to describe having to do something far below your intellectual level, generally for work. Stuffing envelopes, for example, is a Crayon Exercise (AND HOW!).

As much as we all knew we hated Ms Wolfe for the ridicule, the clear cut dislike she showed us all, we also appreciated how hard she worked to prepare us and to make sure we learned. We loved Ms Joe for her sweetness and open enjoyment of teacher, but we loved Ms Wolfe more for caring enough to be a bitch.

Last but not least is Mr Merrill, the Engineering teacher. While my school was not known for its academics, it was known for the Academies it maintained – focused classes that prepped you for what you (thought you) wanted to do with your life. Education, Healthy, Teaching and Engineering were multi-year classes with increasing degrees of difficulty and interest.

I got to learn about mechanical and theoretical physics, as well as descriptive geometry and architecture. Mr Merrill was silly. He raced cars at Laguna Seca on the weekends. He had us build bridges in pursuit of academics. He entered people into County and State Fairs. In Descriptive Geometry he made weird shapes become real with a zeal that is hard to match. His huge classroom of computers and drafting desks was a sanctuary to all us nerds with nowhere else to go for lunch. We clung to it and he was willing to oblige. He proudly displayed the award winning projects his students bestowed upon him on his walls, as any proud parent would.

He built a giant ball of masking tape – old tape that we used to secure our papers to our desks for the delicate mathematical and geometrical processes to find their true shapes piled upon each other until it weight over 20 pounds. It was 4 feet tall and sat on  its own desk.

For all I hated high school for a lot of reasons, those three teachers allowed me to be who I was – who I am – a nerdy girl who loves literature, writing, history, and is fascinated by shapes in space. They encouraged and accepted, something all teachers should do. And they were awesome.