Content, Character, and Compassion - an Essay for Foundations of Teaching

Author's Note: Yes, I stole a bit of this from my graduation speech, if anyone was wondering.

             Choosing a teacher for this essay was no contest—Mr. Shane Long is the reason that I am studying to become a high school English teacher today. Despite the fact that he had attended my school, Lititz Christian School, when he was in junior high and that his family had attended the church affiliated with my school, there is no doubt that he broke the typical LC teacher mold. He wasn’t happily married. He doesn’t have kids who attended my school. He’s never worried about stepping on other peoples’ toes, and he isn’t afraid to speak his mind. He is a middle-aged bachelor with two terriers, Wallie and Evie, who are essentially his kids. He often subtly complained to us about being single and poor, and he leans towards the bohemian, romantic side of living. He’s up-to-date on pop culture and very in-tune with the times. He’s a sensitive soul, especially when it comes to people…and dogs. He wears a hearing aid covered by a mess of curly hair, and he sports a black leather jacket and pair of aviators that make him look like the Unabomber. His has a coarse sense of humor and works his summers as a camp counselor in Virginia, where last summer he met his fiancée, Linda. A true Renaissance man, he’s worked many jobs over the years in factories, ice cream shops, and at weddings for a catering company. Often he worked at least one of these jobs on the weekend while teaching at my school. For all of these reasons and many more, Mr. Long was the perfect person—not just the perfect teacher—for my graduating class.

            I have said that Mr. Long was up-to-date on the culture, and he’d daily discuss current events in the classroom, whether as an icebreaker or as part of the content of the lesson. It wasn’t unusual for him to start off a class by talking about Lady Gaga’s latest stunt or who was running for office in the next election or what new food was supposed to give you cancer. He used all of this knowledge and interest to connect with us on our level. Here is just one example of how he’d link current events with what he taught us in class. Mr. Long was Michael Jackson’s biggest fan. The school year after he died, we were talking about him in English class. Mr. Long commented, “I would have been at that last concert. I would have had to take out a second mortgage on my house to get tickets, but I would have been at that concert.” Later, during my senior year in AP Literature, we studied a few different literary tragedies, including Oedipus Rex. Mr. Long drew the parallel between Oedipus and Michael Jackson—two men who had it all and whose stories had tragic endings. He did that often, drawing comparisons between classroom content—what we would read in literature—and what we saw in the world around us, because that’s what literature is. It’s taking what you see in the world and trying to make sense of it through writing, and Mr. Long taught us that.

            Mr. Long also taught us about character, but not in the way that most people think of character. He isn’t a saint. He doesn’t follow all of the rules. He doesn’t always live by the book. Yet he is still a person of character, because when you find yourself in a pinch, he is the best friend you can have. He’s one of the best people that you could go to for advice about life. He knows how to choose his battles, and he knows the difference between what matters and what doesn’t. He is a person of perspective. Mr. Long is not afraid to call out his friends when they are in the wrong, and although at times he may come off as abrasive, he always speaks out of love. He had to call me out that way my junior year, and although it hurt at the time, it was what I needed. I thanked him for it a few days later. Mr. Long also takes every opportunity to encourage someone, whether it is a student or colleague, and he will frequently point out hidden potential that he sees in others or thank them for thankless tasks. These same thankless tasks he is not averse to performing, himself. Mr. Long is a person of character not because he consistently follows the rules, but because he goes about his day doing all of the little unnoticed things that make the classroom and school a brighter place.

            Most of all, though, Mr. Long is a person of compassion. Mr. Long came to our school when our class was in eighth grade. He was fortunate enough to be our English teacher that year. I say fortunate with a bit of tongue-in-cheek. Our class had a reputation of being disruptive, destructive, rowdy, rebellious, and utterly uncontrollable. Our claim to fame—and shame—is that when we were in fifth grade, we made our pregnant substitute teacher cry. I don’t think she ever came back. In seventh grade, our principle Mr. Rohrer had to come and speak to our class at least twice about respecting others. It didn’t make a difference, though. The boys went through girls’ purses and put Oreos on teachers’ chairs when they weren’t watching. The girls took part in incessant cat fights and frivolous, flirty inside jokes. And by the end of our eighth grade year, Mr. Long was going to Mr. Lewis, our secondary principle at that time, to request—if need be, beg—to be our class advisor for the next four years. He looked past our class’s history and uncouth exterior and saw the potential within. We just needed a chance, and he gave it to us. When many of the other teachers were shaking their heads and giving up on us, he was just getting started. Mr. Long wasn’t afraid to tell us what we needed to hear and tell us exactly what was on his mind, no matter what it was. He still does that to this day. He showed the compassion that our class of misfits so desperately needed.

            Unlike Batman—who was not the hero that Gotham needed, but the one that it deserved—Mr. Long was the teacher that our class did need, and not the one it deserved. No, we deserved a teacher that would take us to the cleaners, Marine-boot-camp style. Instead, God placed us in his class, where he could show us the compassion we needed through his own unique character and the content of English language and literature. One essay isn’t enough to record all of the quotes and anecdotes of our years with him. I could fill a book with stories like the time he drove a John Deere tractor through the school parking lot with a hat on like a lawn gnome, or the time that he wore bright red long johns while he took a turn in the dunk tank. And of course, then, there’s the story about the lazy-eyed...but I won’t go into that one. Suffice it to say, I’ll never meet another teacher like him, but I hope that one day I can be to my students what he was to my classmates and to me. Here’s to you, Shane.