As a retired St. Ignatius math teacher…for the record,
it’s been 12 years now…April is a good month.
The weather begins to improve, I celebrate my birthday, and, this year
on the 16th, I got to meet with former students at the April reunions. I’m fascinated by the career choices of the
members of the classes of 2006, 2001, 1996 and 1991. When they left “1076” as starry-eyed 17 or
18 year-olds, I suspect their imagined careers were more glamourous. Now the youngest of them is nearing 30, and
the oldest …well, we won’t go into that.
Dreams and opportunity meet to create reality. At least that’s what happened in my life, and
I couldn’t be happier.
Maybe I didn’t take a large enough sampling, but I
noticed this year that many were involved in the manufacturing and construction
industries, usually on a managerial level.
In the past, lawyers and doctors seemed to dominate.
That evening, I also found out Jim Luzzi and Kitty Hooper
are both being inducted into the Ignatius Athletic Hall-of-Fame. That’s great!
Congratulations to both of them.
As a teacher, I always found April to be an exciting
time. The Easter break usually occurred
during that month. The school year was
nearing an end, and plans for the summer were being formulated. As the years passed, and technology gained a
foothold in the educational system in math, math teachers’ summers frequently
involved workshops in teaching methods using hand-held calculators. The use of electronic devices often spawned
criticism from “old-timers” about how those gadgets undermined the development
of arithmetic skills. I hear the same
criticism today by those who complain that the computer prevents present-day
students from learning cursive writing.
I’m not sure why it’s viewed as such a crisis, but I would imagine that
the horseless carriage was criticized for cheating youngsters out of developing
their horseback riding skills…as God meant them to do.
Of
course, April was also a busy time for tying up loose ends. We had to prepare for the final exams and try
to figure out what some of our weaker “scholars” could do to improve their
grades…or even pass our course.
There is one unique characteristic about
teaching. No matter how the school year
has gone, or whether all of the designated material has been covered, once the
grades are handed in, the year is “over”.
Get set for a new beginning and vow to do better next year!
One last item: Frank Raispis turned 89 this past Sunday, so to commemorate the occasion, here is an entry from the Raispis/Spalding Cliches to-live-by: "It's always darkest before the dawn, so if your going to steal your neighbor's newspaper, that's the time to do it."
