Good Teacher-Bad Teacher

Judging from the comments left on earlier pieces, we may not remember much about Bishop Amat High School from more than fifty years ago, but we have not forgotten our teachers. What Sister Declan was to short skirts, Father Luke was to long sideburns.

Contrary to the title of this piece, I don’t think I had any bad teachers, just teachers who had bad days, (Thanks Mary McCarty). Mary wrote in the comments of “A Squared Plus B Squared” that she gave detention to a girl for “looking out the window,” on a day when she had just “had it.”

When Father Aidan
smiled at me, I either 
ducked or ran.

I once earned three days of detention from Father Aiden for not completing the last sentence on a grammar assignment. Excuse me for living and breathing. On the other hand, I wrote a referral and assigned my own sixth grade son detention, during his first week in my class, for the dastardly deed of chewing gum. I couldn’t just have busted him and issued him a warning? No, it was “Welcome to middle school, Son, and the special hell of having your dad as your teacher-for four periods a day. For three years” Sigh. 

For me and my sister Jt, who was a junior In my last year, Amat was academically challenging. That being said, the foundation provided for me, led to a fascination with the etymology of the English language. At SJSU I took four classes on Old English, a class on Chaucer (Middle English) and four classes on Shakespeare (Modern English), due in part to being exposed to the classics all four years I attended Amat.

Father Argue

The program Father Argue (pronounced Ar-guee) offered was top shelf. He was not a confrontational man and there was never a time I felt he took out frustrations on his students, unlike the aforementioned Father Aidan.

I had a love/hate relationship with Father Aidan: I loved to hate him. He was the type of teacher who demanded more of yourself than what you had to offer, which can be a good thing, but mostly was not. When you came up short of his lofty expectations, he nailed you to the cross.

As a class we read twenty-six novels freshman year, and I can remember most of them. We had two weeks to read "David Copperfield," but I loved it. I have every novel Dickens wrote in my home library.

The first week of freshman year, Father Aidan took our English class on a tour of the library, emphasizing that we should be taking notes. I have an issue processing information through my ears, so I bombed the ensuing quiz. What resulted was a “cinch notice” informing my parents that I was earning a D in English and was in danger of failing.

Life at home got a lot tougher that quarter.

Father Benedict

I saw Father Benedict’s photo and instantly knew I had had him as a teacher, but it took looking under his photo to remember he taught Spanish. He was comical and made Spanish fun. After two years of Latin, and six years of Spanish at St. Martha’s, I did not even have to crack the book to get A’s. 

Then there was Father Marion, whose photo does not appear in Tusitala ’70, so he was gone by then. I liked him, he told funny stories about Africa and he genuinely tried to impart Algebra I to me. Unfortunately, that pesky inability to process info through my ears, bit me in that part of my brain I sit on. I flailed at Algebra, without failing, probably because Father Marion remembered my oldest brother Eric fondly. 

I know he remembered Eric because he used to ask me why I wasn’t more like Eric, but whatcha gonna do?

Specifically, what I do remember Father Marion saying on multiple occasions (as the need arose) was, “Don’t you boys know that when you cheat, it’s like eating someone else’s vomit? (Voice rising dramatically on last four words…) But you boys don’t give a damn. Why, I remember when I was in Africa, those little African boys used to say, ‘Teach us more, Father!’ But you boys just don’t give a damn…” (Voice dropping dramatically on four last words, almost to a whisper). Unfortunately, the moral lesson he was attempting to convey through such a gross simile, fell on deaf ears. Weird, I know.

Father Deyo

Contrast Father Luke with Father Deyo, both religion teachers, one of whom I liked immensely, the other, not so much.

Father Luke (to us sophomores, in a thunderous voice) “You will rot in HELL for ALL ETERNITY for acts of self-abuse.” He confused me for a minute with “acts of self abuse.” The man could not even say the word, “masturbation.’

Father Deyo on the other hand, while describing his experiences in South Korea (where I would end up spending sixteen months) during the Korean War: “We used to go to Tokyo for I and I."

Us, “What’s I and I?"

Father: "Intoxication and intercourse.” Do you see what I mean?

Flash impressions:

Coach Cantwell: (Varsity football head coach and freshman history teacher, to Kevin O’Brien) “I hear you are quite the debater, Kevin! Does that make you a master debater?” Never was there a questioned asked in such a dead-panned manner. I remember Coach Cantwell coming into our class at St. Martha’s, recruiting football players (His son Philip was in my class). Coach Cantwell had no interest in me.

Sister Miriam (physical science, freshman year. NOT Sister Genevieve who I never heard anything bad about.) Sister Miriam was young but she was a cold-hearted orb who ruled her classroom with an iron fist, in a whisper. (Er, that oral processing difficulty...)

Mr. Hemenway: Mild-mannered, definitely an advocate for students, and best of all, former classmate at Amat of my oldest brother, Eric. Besides, I understood geometry, the only math class I ever experienced any success at. Mr. H was lucky enough to be in the right place, at the right time. 

Father Barry: A grand teacher, unless you happen to get caught cheating. Then it takes a minute to get out of the doghouse. (Sorry about the cheating, Father Marion.)

Father Loius: (Any time inappropriate language popped up) “Gimmee quarter.” That was it. He took the quarter (or you paid him the next day) and put it in a jar “for the missions.” The cynical side of me wonders if the “mission” were possibly beer for the weekend, but that’s preposterous.

Everyone knows the Sacred Heart Fathers did not imbibe.

Mr. Carmon Cabeza, Jr: (Spelling?) Mr. C taught sophomore biology, a disaster of Titanic proportions for me, made worse by the fact that Mr. C’s dad worked alongside mine at the steel factory. You have no idea how disconcerting it is to hear about my [alleged] shortcomings, second-hand, through my father. 

As soon as I post this, I know I will think of someone I left out, so I will post a comment to that effect in the comments sections, below. It would be fun to get others thinking about incidents that we all would find amusing. Putting these in the comments section need not require a great deal of effort, but they will certainly generate a chuckle or two, and invariably some comparisons. You may simply want to give a shout-out to your favorite teacher. 

Mine was Father O'Loughlin, (Spelling?) my debate class teacher, freshman year. I liked him because he did not hold it against me that I was not my brother, Brian, who has a photographic memory.

In any case, correct me if I am wrong, but I doubt that the fine nuns at Amat ever resorted to anything as crude as Father Marion’s simile about cheating. I am certain they were far more refined that that! Furthermore, if they were having a bad day, they kept it to themselves. 

After all, what earthly reason could nuns in full-length habits have, for looking askance at girls’ short skirts? 

Seriously? Do tell...

Mr. Bill Ruch, the teacher I wished
I had when I found out he was having
his students read the works of
J.R.R. Tolkien.