All teachers shed some light in a darkened room. Most of us are like a birthday-cake candle. With some teachers, it is as if the shades of the room are raised and the sunlight streams in. It is about this latter group that I have often mused. In previous reflections, I have described these teachers as having charisma…that indefinable quality that can only be seen by the impact that they have on their students. Such was the case with Jim Serpe
On February 16, Jim passed away. He was not only a great math teacher but a truly great man as well. “Great” can be attributed to anyone who does great things. A “truly great” man not only does great things, but he creates a template for others to copy.
I didn’t know Jim very well because he had spent most of his 65 years of teaching at Loyola Academy, but he did have a special connection to Saint Ignatius. He was raised in the Little Italy neighborhood that borders Ignatius, he was an Ignatius graduate from the class of ’34, and he taught at St. Ignatius from 1942 to 1954, where he started as a Latin and Greek teacher, but fairly quickly moved to teaching math.
I first heard of Jim’s passing on one of my visits to see Joan Terracina, who was a contemporary of his. (For those of you who were around Ignatius before 1990, she was the secretary to the treasurer from 1939 to 1989.) She knew Jim before he met Anita to whom he was married for 70 years. Joan told me what wonderful and kind a man he was. Then I visited Frank Raispis, who was a student of Jim’s at Ignatius, and he echoed Joan’s feelings.
I’m not a big fan of characterizing a person’s career by their awards and acknowledgements, but, in Jim Serpe’s case, I’ll make an exception. After all, how many high school math teachers are invited to appear on both Jay Leno and Ellen DeGeneres’ television shows...which he declined, by the way. In 1980, he was awarded an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters from Georgetown University, and in the early ‘90’s, he received a lifetime teaching award from the Mathematics Teachers’ Association of Chicago.
The Rev. Jim Arimond, S.J., who was head master of Loyola for many years, said, “He was what everyone hopes for in a teacher. Someone who has made such a wonderful impression on you that years later, you look back and remember in vivid detail how that person changed your life.”
Pat O’Mara often said that Jim was one of the best math teachers that he had ever had…high praise indeed coming from Pat. Pat also ruefully said that Ignatius lost Jim because, as Jim’s family grew, he needed a higher paying position. I don’t know if that’s true, but, since Jim and Anita raised 8 children, it makes sense that money could have been an issue.
In 1955, Jim went to Sacred Heart Seminary in Melrose Park, then joined the Loyola faculty in 1963 until he retired at the age of 92 in 2007.
One thing that I’ve noticed about the iconic teachers is that they were always “themselves”. They didn’t try to copy others and they didn’t seem to concern themselves about what others thought of them. They had a clear focus on what they were trying to accomplish. Such seemed to be the case with Jim Serpe. More than one remembrance of him referred to his garish ties and sports coats and how he would open the windows on the classroom in mid-winter to “to get his students’ brains going.” For most other teachers, the outrageous clothing would have been met with derision. Opening windows would have caused parents to call the school with complaints, but not so with Jim Serpe. According to Kevin Mistrik, a former colleague of Jim’s at Loyola, “the bottom line was that Jim loved his students and they loved him. He was everybody’s favorite teacher.”
