I sometimes think that I was born wanting to be in high school. It was not until I entered Mt. Carmel High School in nineteen sixty two, that the world around me began to make sense. While I had many good friends and managed to have fun during my time there, it was in the academic arena that I found the joy that had seemed to be eluding me. My English teacher was particularly a catalyst for lifting the veil that had been distorting my view of the world. 

The first day in his class was challenging and a bit frightening as he outlined the goals that he expected us to meet. One of them was to read a book and report on it each week of the school year. He explained that we would have to choose a variety of genres from a multipage list of titles that were housed in our school library. He noted that he wanted us to read fiction and non-fiction, poetry, classics and modern topics. The task seemed daunting, but since my father had modeled his love of books and reading to me, I knew that it would also no doubt be delightful. 

Our teacher, a Carmelite priest named Father Shane introduced us to book reviews in The New York Times as guides to creating a good report. He did not want a rehash of the story, but rather an insightful critique and analysis of the writing. We would have to learn a new way of discussing a book that would require us to think about the impact of what we had read. 

The reading assignment might have been enough to keep us very busy, but our teacher gave us an additional weekly task. We were to write a theme of around two hundred words based on a prompt that he provided on Mondays. Beyond using that guide for our writing we were free to take any direction of our choosing in creating an interesting essay. I would quickly learn how to write under the pressure of a deadline.

In the beginning I struggled to meet these basic demands along with the requirements other classes. I had to learn how to divide my attention and grappled with time management lest I sink under all the work that I had to do. I often put off writing my weekly theme until Sunday evening when I would grasp almost hopelessly for any idea to jumpstart my writing. The same was true for reading and reporting on a book each week. I had to teach myself how to speed read and  become familiar with short books like Animal Farm to fill the gaps when I felt overwhelmed. Along the way I became better and better at such things just as an athlete becomes stronger over time.

In spite of my apprehensions and often waning energy I eventually learned how to juggle many tasks at one time. I created workable routines for getting things accomplished. I learned how to write about almost anything with ease. I read with eyes more attuned to themes, metaphors, the use of words than simply reiterating stories and facts in my mind. I began to see learning as both a challenge and a fantastically life changing experience. I was in my element. 

Other teachers spoke to my heart as well. I was taking Latin and as I learned the vocabulary the rules of grammar and the declensions I saw the influence of Latin in most of the words I encountered. My teacher, Sister Wanda, put relationships of language together for me, making sense of the very ways in which we speak. She also helped us to laugh about our struggles and how to view learning new things as fun.

I had never been particularly excited about science other than my experience with Mrs. Colby in junior high, but my physical science teacher, Father Bernard, used tactile demonstrations to help me actually understand how and why things work. When he set up a telescope on the football field one evening and showed us the moon and the planets. I was sold. The sheer poetry of witnessing the craters in the moon and the rings of Saturn helped me to realize the poetry of the universe. I finally and truly understood why reading and learning had been so exciting for my father. 

My best teachers were the ones who opened new horizons for me, even if the subject matter was sometimes difficult and controversial to understand. My English teacher, a Carmelite priest named Father Shane, was the best at that. He wanted us to move from the comfort of our isolated little neighborhood into the expanse of the world. He read to us from The New Yorker magazine and took us on field trips to see plays at the Alley Theater and to hear concerts from the Houston Symphony Orchestra. He and other teachers treated us as young adults rather than children. They challenged our thinking and helped us to hone our abilities in language, history, mathematics, science and even religious ethics. To me it felt like the great awakening that I had been seeking and I poured my heart into soaking up as much of the knowledge as my brain would hold.

The Cuban Missile Crisis occurred in October of my freshman year. I’ve since heard that some people left Houston for safer places in the event of a nuclear attack. My family simply carried on as usual. We somehow had faith, that may have displaced, that all would turn out well. Our mother had students to teach and my brothers and I had school to attend. We were all on the brink of an era that would bounce us around like a roller coaster. Somehow with my mother’s calm and the honest knowledge that I was gaining from my teachers I felt safer than ever. I had learned that beauty is truth and truth is beauty. I was no longer afraid.