Guest Blogger: Ken Levit
[From 1976-1983, I taught English and directed plays at Holland Hall Upper School in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I was twenty-four and had negligible experience. I didn’t know up from down about teaching, but during those years, a handful of students changed me irrevocably. Over three decades, one way or the other, they’ve found me. I recently invited them to become guest bloggers, reflecting on something about their high school selves.
Ken Levit, Class of 1983, excelled at heartfelt questioning, making him a treasure. He was terrific onstage, grappling with all kinds of issues about characters, staging, and plots. I once mentioned The Rolling Stones in English class. Amazed, he asked, “You mean your Rolling Stones were our Rolling Stones?” and pinpointed a teenager’s time frame for me. During another class, his frustration rising, he asked, “Can’t we read anything happy?” The Classics made no allowances for joy. Realizing, then, why student writing was wooden, I made space for personal essays where their life experiences could shine in their writing. Ken, a magnificent influence, challenged me often and well. To his everlasting credit.]
***
I really didn’t want to do this. I’m kind of sick of the voices in my own head about Holland Hall and high school.
I’m not sure why.
Perhaps it’s a sense of guilt that I still don’t fully appreciate. How lucky I was to go there. How I never even thanked my parents for the chance.
HH was exactly what I wanted.
At Barnard Elementary, they said the kids at HH had REALLY long arms because they carried so many books. I thought that sounded perfect for me since I loved books. Years later, I am stunned by how narrow our world was there. How cruel it could be. Maybe that’s always the case for those tough years. A Separate Peace. That’s a question I have.
I’m doing this because of the person who asked me to do it. Ms. Clark. Wow. She might have been the best teacher I ever had.
But I really couldn’t tell you why. I don’t think she ever actually taught me anything specific. There was nothing I ever learned directly from her. And it wasn’t like she ever directly intervened in my life or helped me through a personal situation. Yet somehow, somewhat mysteriously, she looms in my head in a big way.
She once did something that blew me away.
We were in class. A typical English class for us. Were there even ten of us? But we—mainly the guys—started cracking jokes about gay people, reciting descriptive names we thought were funny. It built and built. And then Ms. Clark stepped quietly to the corner and put her head in it with her back to us. It was strange. It was certainly unnerving. I think we asked her why she had done this. She said, into the wall if I remember it correctly, “Because I have friends who are gay people.”
Her pain radiated. I felt it. I was ashamed of myself.
It’s truly incredible that we even had to be taught that, but it was practically a foreign concept for me in 1981. But it wasn’t totally foreign either. It felt wrong even then, but she called us on it in a deep way.
What’s a good teacher?
In my current job at a private foundation, that subject arises in a clinical way. All sorts of smart folks try to create the models and the assessments. But, when I think about my great teachers at Barnard or HH or even in university and law school, there is basically one unifying feature. They were honest with us, treated us with respect and built a relationship with us.
That’s a pretty basic thing: caring relationships built on honesty and mutual respect. If I learned that, it’s even better than the long arms.
***
Ken Levit is Executive Director of George Kaiser Family Foundation.
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