Thanks Mr. Vandergaw!

Last year, I found myself in the principal’s office.
Crying.

My beautiful, gifted daughter had been struggling in science class and had confided to me that she hated science. When she described her typical days in class I just could not comprehend and thus, I very purposefully marched into the school and imposed a meeting on the administration. Actual tears came from frustration, exasperation and anger. How do we do this? How do we take incredible, brilliant, fresh young minds and create monotony and mediocrity? I argued that ESPECIALLY in the middle school years our children should encounter fascination and passion for the natural world and the scientific experience. Perhaps some of my frustration in her experience was rooted in my own educational experience for I found myself reminiscing about one of my 7th grade teachers.

Thirty six years ago a young man with an exuberance and joy for life and teaching and students inspired me. Over the years I have on occasion thought of this teacher and it is always with fondness and a smile. He was that one who touched my life in the way that differentiates instructors from great teachers. I have wished for my own children to experience a teacher like him. I was a student of his briefly, at Diamond Mears Middle School. My family had moved to the “big city” from a more rural community half-way to Denali. And we would soon return to the “lower 48.” I didn’t want to leave Alaska and I didn’t want to leave Mr. Vandergaw’s science class. He had caught my attention and had made the mundane into an opportunity for learning. We knew that he loved Alaska and the outdoors, he conveyed a love for teaching and science, and he just gave you the impression that he CARED.

I came home from that meeting in the principal’s office at my daughter’s middle school and did a quick web-search. Whoa! A controversial celebrity was what I discovered, some condemning, some fervently supportive. A horrible comparison with another. Somehow, I don’t really think that he would be all that affected by the opinions or the controversy. I watched the show. I watched it because I just wanted to see my beloved seventh grade science teacher, I wanted reassurance. My attention was riveted to the man. The man on the TV is 70 now, a bit slower in his movement, more intentional. But it was still there! It’s in his words, it’s in his demeanor, it’s in his eyes! In the closing segments the interviewer admits that he was expecting something different (a crazy man perhaps) and he goes on to say “You’re a remarkable man, Charlie.”

Recently, I was packing another daughter off to college. As I was sorting through some old documents I came across the note. It was written shortly after my parents moved our family from Anchorage back to central New York. The brief letter was just a few simple sentences of encouragement written to a girl from Mr. Vandergaw.

I’ll be celebrating 50 soon. I’m a social worker in Florida of all places. Many days my work is heartbreaking, I work with the hope that if just one person’s burden is lightened then I’ll have achieved success. “If I make a difference in one person’s life……..”

“Charlie” Vandergaw is 70. I figured it was about time that I told him……..that he made a difference in my life. I figured it was about time that I thanked him.

This world would be a much finer place if we had a bunch more “Charlie Vandergaw’s” in it. And more of that light in his eyes. The love.