Godspeed, Coach Stewart

In the gallery of high school teachers who taught me about the different ways to be a teacher, there will always be a spot for Joe Stewart.

Joe Stewart's claim to fame in our small town was as a hard-driving successful football coach in a town in which football was the only real sport. I played in the marching band, and it was partway through my junior year that I ever saw the football team lose. Pennsylvania's high school sports system had not yet figured out just how much money they could grab with post-season play, but it was clear that Coach Stewart's team would be one to beat on the larger level.

There is that persistent stereotype of the high school coach who only became a teacher so he could coach and whose classroom work showed little effort, who barely shows up during the day to lead his students on a desultory journey to easy As. 

That was not Joe Stewart.

He taught chemistry, and in the classroom his students never dared to be inattentive, unprepared, or off the mark. In retrospect, I'm not sure exactly why. His temper was a thing of legend--but only on the field, where his explosions were epic. I can still remember a football game at which we were suddenly surprised by a cloud of arms and legs flying, like a Warner Brothers cartoon battle, down the sidelines. Coach Stewart was in there somewhere.

But that was not the classroom. He almost never raised his voice, was never cruel or unkind, and yet... He absolutely demanded your full attention, all the time. Wisecracking students used to turning to deliver a split-second bon mot to fellow students found that they couldn't find even that little pause in the class to do their thing (at least, that's what I heard.) In Joe Stewart's c las, you paid completely attention from bell to bell, and you had better be prepared enough to deal with any questions lobbed your way. As one friend said to me as we marveled over the class, "You just have to pay attention so hard. It's exhausting." Years later I ran into Coach Stewart and was shocked to discover that he was not a particularly tall man at all; in his classroom, he always seemed like a giant.

Coach Stewart and his family moved into my neighborhood, two houses up the street. His oldest son was one of my best friends in those years, and we accompanied each other through a variety of nerdtastic adventures. None of his three boys were the kind of hard core athletic types that some might have imagined for Coach Stewart's kids. The two younger sons were cut from a somewhat different cloth, but they were smart and decent and the home was filled with warmth and love. Joe's wife was an extraordinary woman in her own right. And at the time I liked to think that as he watched his own boys grow up, Joe gained some new insight into why his teenaged students were They Way They Were.

There were stories about underprepared and slacking students being called up to his desk, during class, and breaking into tears before he said a word. But here's what I witnessed in my own class. Debbie, who would be our valedictorian and go on to double major in biochemical engineering space economics or some other improbably challenging field, set out one lab period to boil water over a Bunsen burner. But she did it in a styrofoam cup, and as the styrofoam slowly melted around the boiling water, Debbie started making noises of alarm, as Coach Stewart slowly worked his way around the room. This, we expected, would be an epic evisceration of a student. Instead he looked, chuckled a bit, and moved on.

I never imagined that I could run a classroom with that type of intensity, nor was it a style I had any desire to emulate. But there was something in Joe Stewart's work that stuck with me, typified by an illustration he delivered one day. 

I don't remember if it was prompted by a student complaint about the expectations in the class, or just something he decided to talk about. But he stood in front of us and explained about why his expectations were so high. "I know that if I ask for this--" and here he held up his hand to indicate a line somewhere above his head "--that I will get this." And here he held the hand around shoulder level. "And that's what I want to get. But if I ask for this" (hand still at the shoulder) "then I will get this" and here his hand dropped to his waist. It was as clear an explanation of expectations as I would ever get from a teacher training course, and perhaps more realistic. 

Every once in a while that old saw crops up about whether it's better for a teacher to be feared or loved, and I reckon that some FHS grads would say that Joe Stewart was feared, but I don't think that's right. I think his expectations were high, his demands were rigorous, and he treated students as if they were grownups who had no excuses, least of all the excuse of youth, for not producing the work he demanded of them. What you feared was not Joe Stewart, but the loss of his respect. 

He was a good man with a great coaching career and a great teaching career. He passed away last week at the age of 92. His memory, I am quite sure, is a blessing to many.