Fallen Heroes
…death will come to you off the sea,
a death so gentle, and carry you off
when you are worn out in sleek old age
Your people prosperous all around you
All this will come true for you as I have told.
When I was younger, I read a translation of The Odyssey that finished the story with the death of Ulysses, featuring the hero as an old man, waking up one morning, climbing up a hill, sitting down, and proclaiming that he was ready to die. Although non-canonical, I always liked this image of one of my favorite heroes – someone who had been so many trials and tribulations, but when death came, it came on his terms. It’s an image that I felt was solidly reflected in the end of Babylon 5, which may be a big part of the reason the end of that series resounded so well with me.
In the past year, I've watched two of my own personal heroes fall. One was claimed by death, the other by politics. To some degree, both of them fell as Ulysses did in my young adult translation - on their own terms. Yet, in their falling, I can't help but think how deeply these people have affected and influenced me.
The first of the two, D.J. Keith, was a math teacher... no, was the math teacher at my high school. That’s not to say other teachers weren’t as good or knowledgable, but there was just something to Mr. Keith that set him apart. He was a teacher you didn’t mess with. He had a reputation far and wide for being no-nonsense. A student who was reading a novel instead of paying attention to the lesson found his book being tossed out the second-story window to get the student’s attention back, and another student who was misbehaving found himself being dragged out into the hallway – desk and all.
The more I learn about teaching, the more I know I could never get away with the things Mr. Keith did. They just wouldn’t be tolerated in today’s educational world. I think is somewhat a shame, because Mr. Keith had an attitude and a manner that demanded respect. Even students who didn’t have him as a teacher, or didn’t do well in his class, couldn’t defy him. I was a weak math student… no, I was a lazy math student, and he called me on it perpetually. I think it’s one of the few things that led to my wake-up call my senior year, when I finally proved all the teachers were right – I had the potential and just wasn’t living up to it.
I had the utmost respect for Mr. Keith, and even though I can’t apply his philosophies to my classroom, I know there is his influence there. I hear his words echo in my voice at times, when I talk about being “fair” or I help stall to not give an assignment over the weekend. He was larger than life, an image I often find myself trying to present. I think of all the students who were touched by having him as a teacher, and I mourn those who will never have that chance. If I can carry on only a tenth of his legacy, I will count my career as an educator as a success.
On the other hand, we have someone who wasn’t a teacher, but affected my decision to become a teacher greatly. Danny was the biggest pain in the butt to my co-workers when I worked as an Audio-Visual manager, but once you got to know him… once you paid him respect and earned his respect in return, he was an amazing person. Unlike Mr. Keith, Danny is still around, just having stepped down from the role in which I worked with him. His influence is just as unmistakable, however – possibly more so, since he’s one of the people I turned to when I was thinking about changing careers. Danny supported the idea, both challenging and cultivating it. That was what I needed, because it quickly showed me that teaching isn’t a walk in the park, but that I had shoulders to lean on if I needed them.
I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to tell Danny how influential to me he was before he stepped down from his position. I didn’t have that same opportunity with Mr. Keith, although I had run into his wife (also a teacher, and also a large influence on me) right before I got my teacher’s license and told her of my career change. I hope he heard through word of mouth, and I hope he didn’t cringe if he did.
I got into teaching because I wanted to have an effect on the world, to know that I had made a difference. These are two men who have accomplished this, even if they only made a difference to me. I walk in their footsteps, but even my sizable feet don’t come close to filling those steps.