Educate Yourself

Teachers are way cool. If you teach, you influence more than you know. Really. The coach teaches, and he does a damn good job of it. He has taught just about everything under the sun, and backs off of no challenge. That is what each student is – a pocket of opportunity. The opportunity to get inside the mass of grey matter between the ears, and explode it with wonder, and curiosity. My Pops, he rocks with the ability to inspire. He has coached, taught many men. A great deal still write him on how much he has influenced the life they lead.

That’s cool shit.

If it were not for teachers, I’d be satisfied with second best. That’d suck. Hamel said in a wondrous post about the lack of letting our children fail. Many teachers let me fail, as well as the Popster, and Mom Hawaiianmark. They never, not once, put me on the spot for the failure. It was looked at in context. Did you try? Did you give it your all? If you did, there is no shame in failure. You know the answer to the effort in you heart.

Back to why teachers are so bloody great.

I had a French teacher, Mr. Hu, in High School. He was great. He let me know, without a doubt, that it was going to be a struggle for me with ‘Le Language’. I have enough trouble with English. He encouraged, saw at least I tried, and my lack of ability in a second language notwithstanding, he praised. He also wrote in my year book –

“Good Luck, you’ll need it”

We could get Mr. Hu to derail of French and talk of his tours in Vietnam very easily. Live views of the horrors of war will make you think twice on what’s worth dying for. Needless to say he made it clear that certain things in our world should be thought on more deeply than others.

But it was Mr. Hu who needed the luck. His son attended my alma mater, and somehow, in the heat of a relationship with a girl an ex, and his son, he was stabbed to death. On my campus, while Mr. Hu was at work, educating.

He never really recovered, I see him in town, now and then, and he looks, well, a miss.

He let me fail, and I grew from it, I wished better things for him, that’s for sure.

I love art. I had an art teacher, Mr. Lehano, who totally understood I was trying. I couldn’t execute pottery to save my fat arse, but he encouraged the experiment. He combined with Mr. Wood, in drama, to light a fire of the things that are art, abstraction, nuance, light, color, interpretation, that assist me to this day in dealing with stuff that is not pretty.

These men make me a better firefighter, a better person.

Maile had Miss Chun, her counselor, and special ed teacher. Miss Chun, she is about 99.9% heart. I had to attend a lot of Parent/Teacher meetings once the Felix act got in motion here. Maile means the world to me, as do all my keiki, but Miss Chun knew how much I wanted for her to enjoy, and thrive in school.

Our first meeting, she cried when telling me how much it meant to have parents who care.

Miss Chun, she rocks. She still influences Maile, by way of her always wanting to return to her elementary, to say hi, and help out with whatever she can.

Is that just cooler than heck, or what?

So dear teachers, all around this world –

Mahalo.

(Thanks.)

You will never know the great you do, in the smallest moments, and the everlasting impact you achieve.

Aloha.

(it still sucks to be at the Hotel De Hellish, ‘tho!)

Arrrgh, and I did surf, either!

Rats.