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Dr. Lupini, members of the Brookline Foundation, members of the School Committee, members of the Brookline Community, Dr. Weintraub, dear colleagues and friends, thanks for making this day possible. Thanks for coming to celebrate teaching.
In his brief life, the Cuban poet and hero José Marti wrote some of the most insightful and poetic lines ever written in the Spanish language. As a child growing up in Cuba I learned to recite several of his poems by heart. Today, two of his words seem most appropriate to recite: “Honrar, honra. “ By honoring others, we bring honor to ourselves.
I am honored to receive the Caverly Award. But I must first acknowledge and express my gratitude towards to those who wrote letters on my behalf. I would like to thank my carnales, Steve Lantos, Pat Herrington, and Kenny Kozol. For those not conversant in the slang of the beautiful language of Marti, Neruda, and Isabel Allende, the word carnal represents the highest level of friendship and brotherhood a person can achieve with another. It’s sort of like reaching the 9th Dan in judo.
I would also like to thank my Curriculum Coordinator and friend Agnes Alberola and two wonderful former students, Stephanie DiLibero and Matt Strongin. The letters they wrote in my behalf have deeply touched me. Some dark day in January when my tropical spirits are flagging and I’m not able to get up at 4: 45 as I usually do on school days, I will reread them and their kind words will energize me to face the day.
I would also like thank the more than two thousand students that have gone through my classes these past 23 years at Brookline High and, in that group, I include my two colleagues Alisa Conner and Liz Gorman, whom I had in Spanish 3 advanced and 4 honors respectively. I would like to believe that I had a little hand in their becoming Spanish teachers, but I don’t know for sure.
I hope my talk will be of use to new colleagues who feel things are not going as well as they would like in their classes. Hang in there. One day you too might win the Caverly Award. This year’s winner barely survived his first year at BHS and this is the story I’ve come to tell today.
By the Thanksgiving break in 1986, I was almost ready to throw in the towel. Nothing in my previous academic life had prepared me for the rigors of teaching a hundred independently minded, dynamic, students in a school that had no bells, and an open campus atmosphere that seemed overly permissive at first glance (but I’ve since come to appreciate).
I was not prepared for Brookline High by the six and a half years I attended school in San Luis, my hometown in eastern Cuba, where my teachers tried to mold me into a socialist man. Which meant I had to accept the material without questioning and be ready to spit it back in frequent evaluations. My teachers also tried to make me physically fit so I would be able to defend the motherland from future imperialist aggression. This meant that, after attending classes from eight to twelve noon, I had to go back to school in the afternoon for an hour and half of physical education under the tropical sun.
I was not prepared for Brookline High by the two years of Catholic education I received in neighboring Brighton. When I arrived in Boston in September of 1969, my aunt Estrella viewed the moral teachings of Jesus as the right antidote to my former socialist education. She had no doubt that the teaching sisters of Notre Dame would reverse the years of exposure to the doctrines of Marx, Lenin, and Fidel that I had received in San Luis. But soon after embarking on my Catholic adventure, I realized, that, like the communists, the sisters also insisted on discipline, rote learning and unquestioned acceptance of dogma. Though in the process I also managed to learn English with the help of my classmates and American pop culture.
I was not prepared for Brookline High by four years I spent at Boston Latin, the oldest school in America, which operated under nineteen century curriculum and a one size fits all philosophy. If you were struggling in your classes, there was no Tutorial program to help you catch up. There was no Latin School version of SWS, OFC, or Winthrop House to meet the needs of different types of learners. “If you can’t cut it– you don’t belong here,” was the operating ethos. Attending Latin School was like running a marathon with classmates dropping out every week to go back to Brighton High, English High, or Dorchester High. But I completed the race and was one of the survivors who crossed the finish line at Hynes Auditorium in June of 1975.
I was not prepared for Brookline High by the three education courses I took at Boston University which were long on philosophy and ideals but short on specifics like: How does one get a lively Spanish 1 class to settle down and do some work right after lunch? Or how does one deal with feeling like the worst teacher in the world and still show up the next day, ready to teach 5 classes?
I would have probably quit my job at Brookline High School that fall of 1986, had it not been for two women I was fortunate to have in my life. The first one was my wife Donna Dusseault Calleja. She was teaching Art at Cathedral High in the South End of Boston to inner city students, including Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees who barely spoke English. Yet, unlike me, she wasn’t coming home defeated, dreading to go to work the next day. At night, while I commiserated about how hard my new job was, she planned new drawing and painting lessons and talked with pride about the progress that her immigrant students were making in English.
The other woman that I was lucky to have in my life was my colleague Pat Herrington. She could sense that I was having trouble in the classroom. But Pat is a kind and encouraging human being and I know she was thinking: “ What this guy needs is a trip to Mexico.” So she signed me up to be a chaperone on the April trip. Now I was in a bind. I couldn’t quit. I had to make it at least till April. But I must admit that I was so overwhelmed by the day-to-day struggle with my classes that I wasn’t much help with the preparation for the trip.
But then we went to Cuernavaca, city of eternal spring, with thirty students and something good happened. We found ourselves in the beautiful tropical setting of Cuaunahuac School whose teachers were committed and enthusiastic. For part of the school day, they did some traditional grammar and vocabulary drills but their major focus was on conversation and culture. At Cuaunahuac, our students also learned arts and crafts and tried their hand at making Mexican foods like enchiladas and chicken with mole sauce. On the weekends, they took us on excursions to the Pyramids at Teotihuacan, the museum of Anthropology, and the Folkloric ballet. We got to haggle at the market in the mountain town of Santiago and buy silver jewelry in the historic town of Taxco.
But, more importantly for me, I had the opportunity to observe confidant, committed teachers in action. I saw how relaxed my colleague Pat was around the students., how easily she related to them, how she gained their trust and was able to share a story or a laugh with them.
Feeling a bit more positive about myself after the Mexico experience, I came back determined to deviate from the textbook and try some new ideas in my classroom. And the last seven weeks of school went a little better.
But then, as the summer wore on, Brookline High loomed like a mountain in the back of my mind. Could I just simply call my curriculum coordinator Manuela Bartiromo and say, “I quit,“ and return to teaching English to Latino immigrants at the Cardinal Cushing Center (my previous place of employment)? (They had agreed to take me back.)
My first year at Brookline High had taken a toll on my soul, but a part of me knew that I had to give teaching high school students another try. A part of me knew that I was the son of Jose and Maria Calleja, and the grandson of Pedro and Lucia Alvarez. They were decent, hardworking people, who had faced all kinds of adversity and persevered. I did not come from a family of quitters and I had given my word that I would return to teach in the fall.
That summer I also thought about the teacher that had the strongest impact on my life as a young person. My eleventh grade French teacher, Mademoiselle Ponte at Latin School was small of stature, but she was strong-willed and intellectual and took no nonsense from the five groups of mostly working class male adolescents that she taught. She demanded quality work from all her students and never lost control of her class. But she had a warm heart and understood that on Tuesdays I would be sleepier and less likely to contribute to the discussion on Voltaire’s Candide, Sartre’s Huis Clos or Camus ‘ L’Etranger. Because on Mondays I worked from 3 to 9 at the old A&P on Harvard Street in Allston, putting a mountain of cans and glass jars on the shelves and wasn’t able to start my homework till late at night, or maybe not at all. So, she called on me less on Tuesdays, but the rest of the week I had to be on top form, or else she would keep me after school and deliberately make me late for work to remind me that I was a student first. She understood that I needed to work, but made it clear that I could not use my 30-hour a week job as an excuse in her class or anywhere else.
She would remind me I had the capacity to attend a good college and that if I applied myself she would write me a great recommendation (and she did).
I decided to give BHS a second try. But, l unlike Frank Sinatra I was not going to do it my way. I was going to follow the methodology of Ms. Ponte and my father Jose Ricardo Calleja. Like Ms. Ponte, I was going to get my students interested in discussing poems and short stories en español, but first, I needed to improve my classroom management skills. I was also going to teach grammar and vocabulary in context through the use of visuals drama, story, and songs and I was going to have some fun like we often did in our French class at Latin School. And, like my father, I was going to make a commitment to the paycheck and not walk around looking defeated.
That fall of 1987, I began to see that Brookline High worked because it had committed teachers who rolled up their sleeves and worked with all types of students. It had teachers who give it their all in the classroom and demand that their students work hard and be good citizens. But these same teachers also know how to tell a funny story and share a laugh at lunch, or at the copy center. Because without a sense of humor, no one survives this job.
Since that fall of 1987, when I decided to commit myself to teach at Brookline High, some great things have happened in my life. The most important one has been the birth of my two children, Marisa and Julian. They helped put things in perspective. Before their birth, I might have spent an entire weekend making up worksheets, cutting and pasting photographs from old National Geographic magazines, correcting papers, or planning lessons.
But children don’t understand the insecurity that drives teachers to overwork, to lead a quasi-monastic life. The decision to leave a stack of papers uncorrected in order to take my children to the playground or read them a story wasn’t hard to make. And, as a language teacher, I learned more about language acquisition by observing them learn English and Spanish than in any graduate program in linguistics that I might have enrolled in. Though very different in temperament and learning style, Marisa and Julian have also had a great experience as students in the Brookline School system. Marisa has just finished her junior year at Brown University and Julian is about to graduate from BHS . He will be attending the University of Vermont this fall. I want to thank all the colleagues who taught them with dedication and love over the past 15 years.
Besides my children, there are two people here who have had a very lasting impact on my life. The first one is Judy Steinbergh, Brookline’s poet laureate. My life changed that day in the spring of 1991, when I began attending the workshop she led for teachers interested in developing their voice through poetry. Through Judy’s encouragement and guidance I began to fulfill the Spanish prophesy which states that all of us have a poet, an artist, and a crazy person trapped inside and our job is to let them out or our lives will be diminished. These past few years I’ve been able to write and share several poems, short stories, and personal essays and I’ve got more in the works.
The second one is Steve Lantos, science teacher, musician, Renaissance man, who has logged more miles across the planet than anyone else at BHS. When I would not go to Cuba to visit my family, Steve went to visit the island twice and brought me back news from aunts and uncles that I had not seen in decades and greetings from first cousins that I had never met. Steve inspired me to start traveling and I began logging a few miles of my own. These past few years, in my quest to bring the sights and sounds of the Spanish-speaking world into my classroom (twice with the help of the Brookline Foundation), I’ve also walked the streets of Madrid, Mexico City, Quito, San Juan, Santo Domingo, San José, Costa Rica, and, finally, the streets of San Luis, my hometown in Cuba. But still, my favorite street in the whole world is Harvard Street, here in Brookline or in Allston. It’s springtime, Steve is walking alongside me and we’re having our never-ending dialogue about the state of the world, the state of American education, or the state of our souls.
I could go on and on about the great things that have happened to me since that fall of 1987, but, for lack of time, I will mention only two.
Badminton came into my life sometime around 1992. George Yu, the founding father of that graceful, fast paced, nonviolent sport, was leaving BHS to take a job with the Department of Education. He asked me to be the club’s advisor. “You don’t even have to play, “ George said. “You can sit and correct papers while the students play. They just need an adult presence so they can use the gym. “ But I’m not a sit around type. Once I started playing the sport regularly, I got hooked. And, not to sound too cocky, but I’ve become a pretty decent player. Badminton has given me the opportunity to meet and connect with many students that I do not have in class. But more importantly, our club provides a place for some of the school’s international students (including this year’s Chinese exchange students) to make friends while engaging in a healthy activity.
The Tutorial Program has given me to the opportunity to grow professionally. The program has allowed me to go beyond my role as a Spanish teacher and get a glimpse of what students are learning in their other academic classes. In trying to provide support to students in the humanities, I’ve had the opportunity to read and reread some great books like Song of Solomon, Things Fall Apart, and The Great Gatsby, to name a few. And I know a lot more American and world history than I did just a few years ago. The Tutorial Program has also given me the opportunity to work with Betty Strong, a caring human being and a great math teacher.
In closing, I would like to reassure my colleagues in their first and second year of teaching, who might be having a bit of a hard time in their classes, to not be afraid to seek help. There are many kindhearted people in our profession. I had the good fortune to run into Pat Herrington my first year at BHS. As a good teacher and a kind human being, she instinctively knew how to reach out and support a struggling colleague. Because of her kindness, I stand before you today.
Now at the end of my twenty-third year at BHS, I’ve become one of the elder statesmen at the school. As the old guy in the World Languages department, I get to give the younger colleagues some solicited and sometimes unsolicited advice. But the younger colleagues also have much to teach me. With Kristina Tobey’s help, I am less afraid of technology and I did first my Power Point presentation this year. Pedro Mendez has re-energized the way I look at literature and is leading our Spanish reading group. Astrid Allen has shown me all the ways I can use iMovie and YouTube . Kenny Kozol has brought the music of Cuba back into my life and has reminded me that I need to sing and dance with my classes more often.
We’re living in an age that requires advanced degrees, keeping up with ever evolving methodologies, and a rapid pace of technological change.
But teaching is an art and act of love. It’s about engaging the intellect, but also the heart. The advice the fox gives the little prince in that beautiful book by Antoine St. Exupery that I first read in Ms. Ponte’s class French class at Latin School still rings true today. “On ne voit qu’avec le coeur. L’essential c’est invisible pour les yeux.”
One sees only with the heart. What’s essential is invisible to the eyes.
Solo se ve con el corazón. Lo esencial es invisible para los ojos.
Thanks for listening.
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