For This Soon-to-Retire Instructor, A Great Part of Teaching Was Learning
Daily Breeze, Torrance
Jun 18, 2003

I am nearing the end of a long teaching career, thankful beyond words for all the joys I've experienced and terribly upset this part of my life is ending. I will retire Friday after 37 years at Torrance High School.

I have often read and heard statements from other teachers about the difficulties and horrors of our profession, about rowdy and undisciplined students, uncaring parents, and unsupportive administrators. While I do not doubt their accounts, none of them has been my experience.

The kids have been wonderful: I have spent my days with people I like, teaching English, a subject I love. Their parents have been caring and supportive; many, like their kids, have become friends through the years. And my administrators have also been supportive and encouraging.

Torrance High School and the surrounding community are like a small town in the middle of the L.A. metropolis. I suspect that other older high schools in the South Bay have the same feel.

Many of our students are the third or fourth generations of their families to attend Torrance High. I see this community of old friends and newer members coming together to support their kids at Back to School Night, athletic events, school drama and music performances, and graduation.

The student body, like the community, has changed in some ways since I began in 1966. The majority were then white, predominantly blond-haired and blue-eyed; now there is no majority. We are far more diverse ethnically, religiously and racially than anyone would have imagined.

What did we know then about Islam or kimchee or former Soviet states or Brazilian soccer or Hindu vegetarianism or African music or trade with Mexico? Yet the tenor of the school remains very much the same. Yes, the world is more complex and dangerous than it was in 1966, but kids are still kids. They want to look up to adults, they want to be listened to, they want help with growing up.

I have taught thousands of students through the years. They have surprised, delighted and enlightened me. The exceptions were so rare that they hardly existed: I don't think I've sent half a dozen kids to the dean in my career. And the students have taught me.

I have learned as much from my students as they have learned from me. Every classroom is full of experts on various subjects. Kids are voracious learners, and many of them have an incredible depth of knowledge about widely varied subjects.

More importantly, they have taught me about tolerance and individuality and love. They have accepted and respected me as the person in charge, while also showing me why they deserved my respect. They've taught me that learning is always better when we laugh together and that I'm a better teacher when I don't mind being a bit of a fool.

They have accepted me, with all my idiosyncrasies, and merely wanted the same acceptance in return. I often run into former students at the grocery store, mall, beach, gym and in restaurants. I've talked with them on the phone when I put a vacation hold on my newspaper and when I called the plumber. The policeman who stopped me for expired registration was a Torrance High graduate. (Yes, he gave me the ticket.)

I've encountered alumni on 52nd Street in New York, on a plane to London, and camping in Sequoia National Park. I've always loved our little reunions, catching up on each other's lives before once again going our separate ways.

I care about my students when they're in my class, and I continue to care about them when they're adults. We spend an hour a day together for almost 10 months; we become part of each other's lives. I want to help them love literature and to write and speak clearly. More, though, I like them and want to know them, want to help in any way I can as they go about the challenges of growing up.

I was also lucky enough to have been a boys and girls tennis coach for 15 years. Knowing students in that way-in an atmosphere both more relaxed and more competitive than the classroom-was a joy.

Teaching has benefits that more than compensate for the low salary, rewards I would have found in no other job. Helping people to learn and grow is both exciting and humbling. I've been a surrogate father and uncle and big brother, privileged to share students' secrets and fears and hopes. The thank you's and the appreciation for my trying cannot be measured monetarily.

I've attended their weddings and funerals and reunions. I have dinner regularly with students now themselves 50 years old, as well as with recent graduates. We talk about our lives and dreams. I am, in fact, wealthy in a way no other career would have provided.

Torrance High School and its community have given me more than I could hope to give in return. I've had a career I loved in a community that took me in, supported me, and cared about me. No wonder I have such conflicted feelings about retiring; no wonder leaving is so hard. 

Send your own congratulations to Mr. Griggs at
woodyfgriggs@aol.com