Weigh With Words

I was reading a book by another of my heroes, the great scientist Carl Sagan. Sagan said that his teachers were not particularly great, except for his parents. My parents were great teachers, too, but what Sagan was really complaining about was a lack of inspiration from his teachers. That's a shame, because I can name a few teachers who greatly inspired me.

Dr. Judith J. Kollmann was my English 102 professor at the University of Michigan-Flint. Like all great teachers, she was demanding. More than that, she had a conversational approach to her teaching that I really appreciated. As kids say these days, she was "keepin' it real." I try my best to do the same in my own classroom.

One of the dreadful things she required of her class was to keep a daily journal. "Ugh!", I thought. I mean, I'm studying to be a high-falootin' mathematician! Why do I need to consume my time with a journal, for crying out loud? She told us we had to turn it in every few weeks, and that she'd grade it.

Whenever I could squeeze in time between my "real studies," I'd write something in my journal. I started very slowly, to say the least. What would I write about (daily!), and who would even care? More to the point, was that crazy Kollmann even gonna read the darned thing? I had my doubts about that, you see. There were a bunch of students, and how could she possibly have time?

Sure enough, she read everything I ever wrote in that journal. She made pithy comments in the margins, too. Better still, and much to my surprise, she actually liked my ramblings. "Excellent journal," she wrote, attaching a score of 9 out 10, in the very first grading. Hmmm. I didn't know what to say. My Chatty-Cathy journal entries were like, ya know, good? Who knew?

She gave me advice too, when I blathered on about personal goings-on. She asked questions about me. She responded to some of my comments with answers of her own, and gave insight into her own viewpoints. A real personal touch. And gosh, she actually...cared!

She was very encouraging, too, to this wacky kid.

One day, in that fall of 1981, she came into class, her arms full with our journals. She had read them all. She pulled one off the top of the pile, and told us all that she liked this one particular journal entry. She liked it so much that she read it to the class, right then and there. Try to stick with it, as I re-tell what she read:

Oct 25, 1981

You're not going to believe this story. It's my alibi for missing the English class on Friday, October 23. Now, I never go anywhere except to work and school. Well, this particular Thursday, I went to the planetarium to see the new Laserdrive show. I was gone about 2 hours. When I was returning home, the only passage to my house was road blocked by the police. So, thinking logically, I went around trying to get in another way. (I didn’t know it was completely blocked off.) This failed. So, I spoke to an officer, hoping to find out how I was going to get home. He told me that it would be a while. So after he explained that a madman was now in an apartment building holding a girl hostage with a shotgun (absolutely true!), I drove around, and checked back to see if I could go home. I did this every few minutes. I didn’t get home until 12:30 am. Well, when I got home, I began working on my English paper as I had planned to do at about 10:00 pm. (Honest to God, I did my paper!) I didn’t get to bed until nearly 4:00 am. Well, what happened was that I overslept Friday morning, and I missed my English class. Sorry! Hard to believe? It’s all true.

Yup, I still have that journal.

When Dr. Kollmann read it, I just kept my head low. I was proud, though, when my classmates laughed in the appropriate places. The manner in which Dr.Kollmann read it sure helped, too. She didn't mention any names, and I didn't tell anyone that it was my journal she read, either, but her actions sure were a big boost of confidence for me. She didn't know it, but her attitude, her methods, and her approach influenced and inspired me more than I can say.

I try to remember that when I'm standing in front of a room full of impressionable kids. Today, I actually require my students to keep a journal of sorts. We call it the "Calculus Manual." Kids tell me every year how helpful it is to them when they move on to college.

I e-mailed Dr. Kollmann a few years ago, and finally thanked her for being such a great teacher. She remembered me, and my journal story. I shouldn't have been surprised -- she really is that good. If Carl Sagan had been as lucky as I to sit in her class, I'm certain he'd have a different opinion of at least one of his teachers.

Dr, Kollmann is retired, now, and she was named Professor Emerita at the university.

Lucky me.

60 Minute Man

Speaking of asking questions...

In 1990, I was a member of North Dallas High School's mathematics department. It was just my second year as a teacher, but I learned fast in the inner-city. Our department chairman, a man of much experience, was a big proponent of a series of textbooks published by a man named John Saxon. Our chairman contended that the Saxon texts, along with tutoring and committed teaching were responsible for improved student scores at NDHS. Because Saxon was a controversial maverick publisher, going up against math experts who rejected his books, "60 Minutes" deemed the story worthy for its show.

When I learned that the show was coming right to my own department, I became excited, to say the least. I was a huge fan, going back to my early teen years. Mike Wallace was one of my heroes, with his trademark, hardball, go-for-the-throat style of interviewing. Was he going to be at my school, I wondered? Or, would it be one of the shows' other correspondents?

Soon enough, a production crew for 60 Minutes came out, and they talked to several of us about our school, and teaching math, in general. They were doing their homework, and I was pretty impressed. I was happy to know that as journalists, they lived up to everything I had heard about them.

I think it was a week later, I was teaching class, and I heard an unmistakable voice from down the hall -- it was Mike Wallace! Wow! I hoped I could meet him! Was he going to ask me questions? What would I say if he did?

Well, he did ask me a question as it turns out, but more on that in a minute. I didn't get to see Wallace, my hero, until after school let out, and I went up to the school library, where he was interviewing our department chair for the show. I waited around for a chance to talk, and finally I got to sit at a table with him. I couldn't muster the courage to ask for an autograph, but I sure wanted to! We talked for about 20 minutes. Nothing in particular, just general chit-chat, we shook hands, and I mentioned that I was a big fan of the show, from the time I was a kid, and my mom had it on, every Sunday. He seemed to have heard that kind of adoration a lot, but he was very generous with his time, while he waited to do more filming.

Finally, he asked me that question, as I mentioned above. World famous journalist Mike Wallace gave me that Mike Wallace look, and with that Mike Wallace voice, he said...

"Where's the can?"

Yes, the man who interviewed so many world leaders -- people like George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, LBJ, JFK, Manuel Noriega, the Ayatollah Khomeini, Menachem Begin, Anwar el-Sadat, Yasir Arafat, on and on and on... also put me in the hot seat. Er, sort of.

I started to tell him, and then thought, ahh, what the hell, I might as well walk him downstairs and show him the way. I did, and he even said "thanks." I didn't lose my job, I didn't make the papers, but I will always remember that day.

Tick, tick, tick, tick...