Great teachers make classrooms come alive
October 12, 2001
As an undergraduate I was an English major in a small college. We had three English professors who taught most of our English classes. The professors were very knowledgeable, they were very reserved and very, very soft-spoken. In their classrooms everything seemed to be under control and the tone of the classrooms seemed almost hushed. I remember thinking that I was in a library where I couldn’t raise my voice. I can never remember loud voices or heated disagreement.
Then in our third year we had a new English professor. His name was Mr. Fitabalie. He was very, very different from the other
professors. He had a dramatic, striking
appearance. He was tall and thin and
every part of his body seemed to be in constant motion. His face was so expressive and he talked in
a very shrill tone. And his eyes seemed
to be always staring at you.
When he taught, he seemed to be on stage and his dramatic
presence demanded your full attention.
Very quickly his classroom filled with a new energy and a sense of
excitement. He would be moving back and
forth in the classroom and directing provocative questions right at us. We were not prepared for this challenge and
we were really taken back. He didn’t
seem to care much about the facts contained in our textbooks. He wanted to know what we thought. He wanted to know how we felt about these
issues.
After a few classes with Mr. Fitabalie I began to really
admire his new teaching technique. I
found myself almost staring at him and noticing all of his verbal and physical
characteristics. When he read something
in our textbook that troubled him he would stare at the page and tell us that
he couldn’t understand how an author could write something like this in a
college textbook. He would say it was all wrong. And then he would tell us why.
I couldn’t believe that a person could challenge a college textbook.
And then his influence began to reach out to us. We began to disagree among ourselves and
even disagree with our new teacher. And
he seemed to enjoy our disagreement.
Now our classes were completely different from those with our previous
professors. We began to talk in loud
voices. We began to challenge each other. We began to express our personal
feelings. And for the first time we
began to experience a passion and a sense of excitement about learning.
In his classroom I could say what I felt and I could write
about any topic that interested me. I
found that now I took extra care in my papers.
I wanted to give him my very best.
I wanted to share my personal feelings and my own ideas with him. I couldn’t wait for my papers to be
returned with his comments and suggestions.
It took a while for him to return papers but when they came back you
knew he had spent a lot of time with them.
After a few months he became kind of a hero to some of
us. But I think some of the other
English majors were scared of him and didn’t know how to handle this new
classroom experience. I just loved Mr.
Fitabalie and everything he taught us.
I guess Mr. Fitabalie was told by his bosses that he had to
use the same textbooks that we had been using for two years. He wasn’t too happy with this and it
showed. One day we were discussing a
writing technique a student had used and Mr. Fitabalie sharply disagreed with
that particular technique. The student
was pretty bright and directed us to page 132 of our writing textbook we called
“Kierzak.” And sure enough page 132 in “Kierzak” backed up the student’s point.
Now Mr. Fitabalie was furious. And then his face began to change. The veins in his neck began to vibrate. His face began to turn red.
His eyes began to get really wild.
And he began staring at page 132 of
“Kierzak.” And then he said that
something was wrong with page 132 of “Kierzak.” He said that obviously the
author had made a mistake on page 132.
And then he made history in that small college.
Mr. Fitabalie held up his copy of “Kierzak” and ripped out page 132. We were stunned.
“Kierzak” was our bible for writing.
We were told we had to know every page of this bible if we were to
graduate. We thought this textbook was infallible.
And then things got even wilder. He turned to us and told us to rip page l32 out of our
textbooks. This was anarchy. We just sat there in shock for a while. And then he looked my way and something must
have come over me because I took page l32 in my hand and ripped it right
out.
And then I felt a rush of power. This was one of the textbooks that had been ruling my life
without mercy for two years. Now I was
pushing back. I was somebody and I was
not going to get pushed around any longer by some dumb textbook. Then a few of the other students started to
rip out page 132 and the classroom was in chaos.
He later explained that no author is perfect and no author
can write a textbook and expect to have every page perfect. He said that when we read a book we can
learn from the author’s point of view but we also must remember to use our
own judgment about the merits of the
book.
Well, I learned a lot about writing from “Kierzak” but I
guess I learned more about life when Mr. Fitabalie ripped out page 132 of this
textbook.
Mr. Fitabalie was my teacher only for one semester. But sometimes when I am teaching in a
workshop and something special happens in the chemistry of the group, I can
feel my veins begin to vibrate and my eyes get a little wild. And then I can feel the passion and the
excitement of teaching and learning.
Later I smile to myself and I know that Mr. Fitabalie has left but his
influence has never left me.