A recent story in Play on Andre is based on my old high school principal Mr. Wayne Coleman. Though it would not have fit in the novel itself, I wanted to take time today to illuminate exactly how Mr. Wayne’s lesson that day travelled the years. As it was with many of my memories of Hanson Memorial High School, I used those photographs to teach lessons to my own students when I became a teacher and coach myself.
In the fall of 2008, we were closely monitoring Hurricane Gustav. Since it was very early on in the year and my students and I really hadn’t developed much of a relationship with each other yet, I considered not sharing my story about Mr. Wayne with them. My decision turned, however, when one of my students from the year previous, Kayla Klein, asked me if I’d told my new class that story yet. She said she remembered being changed by it and that it was one of the stories that just couldn’t go untold. I looked at her, smiled, and thanked her for being a messenger of sorts, for highlighting the truth that was already inside me.
I did tell the story to each of my classes. They looked at me with interest and seemed to hear every word I was saying. I’m thinking, Okay, right move. Thank you, Kayla, for reminding me of why I’m here. And then that night at the football game, a Wednesday night game because of the looming threat of the storm, the entire cheerleading squad, most of the student body, and yes, many of the adults, erupted with joy when our assistant principal announced that there would be no school on Friday so that families could prepare and evacuate.
I sat there, sad, but not surprised. You teach long enough and you grow to learn that your words are often heard, but rarely followed, not in the light of day, anyway. You sit there and try not to look at the very faces you just got through teaching that lesson to, when you swore they had gathered it all in and were ready to live it out even in the face of the stiffest spiritual competition. You look straight ahead and choose not to know what adults are cheering, what adults never had the blessing of hearing Mr. Wayne’s lecture that day.
And you feel arrogant for this because you know you’re not even close to perfect either, that they are better than you in other areas of life where they got lectures and you didn’t.
But the knowledge that you are a hypocrite doesn’t matter. It feels bad and you’re not strong enough to simply let it go. All these thoughts and prayers and battles run through your head in a matter of moments, moments that you swear nothing you do and nothing you ever say means anything. That you’re just a worthless high school teacher who should just mind his business and love his wife and go ahead and start that family you’ve been putting off because you believe that much in your cause. How stupid. How utterly foolish you are. You are just as near-sighted, Teacher-Boy, as these people going crazy right now.
Sometime during the 2007 school year I had emailed Mr. Wayne and thanked him for coming in to the locker room that day when I was a high school freshman and letting us have it. I told him that the lesson had been invaluable to me, because it had taught me compassion for the suffering of others. It had also extended to me a story to tell to my classes now. He emailed me back and gave me even more words of wisdom, even more inspiration for my philosophy in teaching: “Our job as teachers is not necessarily to teach something new, it’s to highlight what’s already inside them.”
I thought about this exchange that Wednesday night before Gustav and wondered why I hadn’t been able to highlight what was already there this time. Why hadn’t they listened? Why had it worked for Mr. Wayne and not me? Was I too preachy? Did I speak too long? Is it too early in the year to get into all that life lesson stuff when all they’re thinking about is the summer come and gone?
I ached that night, and the following night. I thought about it amidst my wife and I’s evacuation to Austin. It troubled me, and I wondered if I was even right in the first place. Maybe they are just kids. Maybe it’s Mr. Wayne that was wrong way back then. Maybe you’ve been living a lie, Jeff, that this great man who you respect and love was just off his rocker that day, pissed off at some secretary or student and just decided to come take it out on you.
The following Wednesday we were back to school, and stories of students’ homes being flooded were flying around campus. The same Kayla who’d asked me if I’d shared that story with my new group of juniors was talking to a current student of mine, Celeste Woodard, at lunch break that day. They came over together, both of them smiling widely because that’s just how they were, and Celeste told me she had something to tell me. I thought about her, how sweet and beautiful she was, how big of a smile she had, and wondered how in the hell she could have been one of those cheerleaders jumping up and down like little idiots that night at the football game.
Something was wrong with me. It had been a week and I still couldn’t let it go.
“Coach LeJeune, remember that story you told us last week about your principal?”
“Yes,” I said, now beaming inside because I’m sensing something great coming on.
“I was one that was excited when I heard the announcement, but then right away I thought about you and your story. I stopped. I felt bad.”
I looked at her and was speechless. I moved my face to speak a couple of times but in the end just smiled. I think I weirded her out. But I couldn’t speak because I was so happy, and really no words could have been adequate anyway. She was the question and the answer, the alpha and the omega. Nothing left to fill in. Just smile and beam, Jeff, that some higher light just blinked at you.
