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A Master Teacher

I always thought myself a decent teacher. I loved my work and threw myself into it. For twenty-three years, I crafted my style and honed my skills. By age forty-four, I felt a seasoned and competent educator. Life, both personal and professional, had developed a rich fullness like a ripening fruit in the warmth of the summer’s sun, blemishes and all. While there were some who chose superlatives to describe my work, I simply visualized myself as dedicated and hard working. There were no doubts, as actor Jack Nicholson quipped in a movie, life was “As good as it gets.”

As good as my realm was it was also just as temporary. My world was vulnerable. My castle was built out of sand and sat beside the sea.

It all began to shift with the onset of those innocent-seeming muscle cramps. It crumbled with that call from my neurologist. It put me under a death sentence. ALS runs its nasty, fatal, paralyzing course in a flash.

The first of many choices I faced was how to spend the rest of my life. This was not a yes or no question. The answer did come easily. Quite early, I made my decision. My life was good: I wouldn’t change a thing. In spite of the challenges to come, I knew I wanted to continue teaching.

Little did I realize that these darkest hours would produce my brightest moments. Along my journey with the disease. I eased from teacher to learner: from leader to explorer. The most profound lessons were still to come. As I battled ALS in the public’s eye, my class, my school and my district became my allies. We all became a team, learning life’s important lessons together. Here is one simple story that epitomizes the interrelationship between us all.

As mentioned, the Habitat House was an incubator producing numerous examples of this interaction. It housed many dozens of varying animal species gathered for children in a “living laboratory.” Lunch periods found my room a veritable beehive of activity. Like worker drones, children were in perpetual motion tending to their charges. A large magnetic chalkboard ruled off into a grid, served as the master scheduler. It listed a myriad of feeding details including animal names, cage numbers, food types and amounts.

The chalkboard was a self-directing manager. Each animal had a small square magnet occupying the last square of the grid. One side was red and green on the other. When a student scanned the board for a task to complete, they saw which jobs needed to be completed -they were green. Upon selection of a particular “green, go” job, the student must turn the magnet to red, signaling, to other children, “Stop—it’s done.” Then they set about doing the task. Perhaps they needed to weigh out twenty-one grams of oats for the Egyptian spiny mouse, change the hay in the Pigmy goat enclosure, measure 125 milliliters of water for the chinchilla or sample the Ph in one of the aquariums. Each new marking period, another crop of lunchtime would-be naturalists stride into Habitat, ready for work.

On one of the orientation sessions for a new group, a timid third grader listened to my detailed procedures. When instructed, she approached the board and viewed her options. Her head rotated as she scanned the list. After an inordinate interval, she turned and stared off in my direction. Sensing something, I labored toward her.

“Mr. P, I need help. I want to feed the iguana but can’t,” I barely heard her say over the busy background noise.

I bent down to inquire the nature of her problem. I gently probed, “Do you understand the board?”

Her head bobbed in affirmation. Perplexed, I searched wider. “And, you know where the supplies are?”

Again, she nodded. Her eyes, on level with mine, seemed tense and unsure. I remained hunched to be close. Her statement stumped me. “Well honey, what is it?”

She raised her hand, index finger extended and pointed to the chalkboard. Her arm angled up and fixed on the iguana. It was the highest choice.

“It’s too high; I can’t reach to turn the magnet. My arms are too short; will you do it for me?”

The pint-sized waif stood looking at me awaiting my intervention. I froze, helpless, as I sensed my own paralyzed arms hanging limply at my side. I, the teacher, was unable to help this young girl with her simple request. She waited with an innocent stare that burned through me. I interpreted her body language as saying, “Well, are you going to help me or not?” I couldn’t.

As I faced the decision to teach with increasing disabilities brought on by ALS, a haunting thought always shadowed me. Would I recognize when the time comes that I should retire, when my limitations exceed my contributions? Sixty odd years ago, my disease’s namesake, Lou Gehrig, faced the same decisive moment. After a historic string of over 2,000 games stretching 13 years, Lou left baseball.

“Leave at the top of your game” is a mantra spoken by all challenged with a declining performance. I wrestled with that idea as I faced this young girl. I felt on the cusp of where I reached the point when I was at the top with the decline ahead. I couldn’t help her with the simplest routine request. Worse, my ALS interfered with her progress. I was hurting rather than helping.

Without intending, this sweet, eager, young child taught me a lesson in life and about myself.

ALS was the curriculum and I became the learner.

In my intellect, I knew real teaching was a magical interaction between teacher and learner. John Dewey, the father of American education, captured it

He told us, “Learning is not a spectator sport.”

You learn best through involvement in real problem solving. In spite of this, I was a prisoner of the teacher’s need to “always know and to be in charge.”

Like a blacksmith’s anvil, ALS reshaped my life. It forged me anew, stretching who and what I was. This young girl was doing the same thing. I was learning that there are times we are not the ones to solve things by ourselves.

I wracked my brain to come up with a resolution to her quandary. I failed to see a solution. With a gentle honesty, I asked her a question.

“Are you aware of my muscle disease?”

She fidgeted a smiled and whispered, “Yes.”

“Well hon, I can’t help you. My arms are too weak. I can’t raise them up that far.”

Relieved at my own truthfulness, I awaited a response. I anticipated her to make a new selection of a different animal, one that was more within her reach instead. However, she continued to look at me. Her mind was fixed. She wanted the iguana. Retreat was not an option she entertained.

In a flash, it came to me. “Hon, I can’t solve your problem alone. But, if we work as a team, I think we can solve it together.”

She looked puzzled.

“Well,” I continued, “your arms are too short, my arms are too weak. However, if we work together and help each other, we can do it.”

“Okay,” she waited for more.

“I will give you the length of my arms and you give me the strength of yours.”

I motioned to her to grasp my thin, limp arm hanging uselessly at my side. Recognizing the unorthodoxy of it all, she hesitated before taking my arm.

“Great,” I exclaimed and encouraged her to lift and to push it higher.

Stretching on her tippy toes and strained with the deadweight of my long arm. She inched my hand close to the top of the chalkboard, a good six feet high. Her fingers pressed into the flesh of my upper arm and I heard a moan as she made a last effort. Hitting the magnet, my fingers fumbled and managed to flip it to red. Spent, she let my arm go. It fell and thudded against my leg. Then she bounded off, content to do her job. With her back to me she shouted, “Thanks.” It was but a brief moment and it was over.

I stood there. The impact of what happened slowly sunk in. I realized I was no longer ‘able’ in a physical sense. I learned from ALS that I was no longer in charge of circumstance. The girl taught me that I alone was not always the solution.

ALS had branded limitations into me. Experience did the same with potential.

I realized also, we must be a team. A true team united by common goals and purpose. Strength should be measured in our collective strengths and not by our individual weakness.

It took me awhile to get Dewey’s words. Twenty-five years to be exact. Guess I am a slow learner. Better late than never.

I continued to teach in the classroom for another eight years. My muscle deterioration advanced. I experienced the pain of growing more aware of everything I could no longer do. At the same time, I rejoiced as I considered all I can do. I’ve learned: spirit and determination combined with teamwork are limitless.

Each day brings a new challenge. It also brings an opportunity to learn and grow. ALS, rather than a death sentence, has become the real master teacher. It teaches my family, friends and me.

There were some who chose superlatives to describe my teaching. I know the real Master Teacher.

The lesson in this was teamwork produces results beyond individual’s abilities separately. We must measure our ability not by our individual weaknesses but by the collective strength we have alongside others united for a common goal.