Why You Should Tell the Best Teacher in Your Life How Much They’ve Meant to You
Yesterday I had the privilege of doing something that I’ve always wanted to do but thought I’d never have the chance to.
I got to tell Carl S. Young, the best and most important teacher I’ve ever had, just how much he meant to me, and how thankful I am to have had him in my life as a role model and inspiration.
I believe Carl is the only person more delighted than I was about this coming to pass. Which of course made it even better for me.
And that’s really why I’m writing this. If the greatest, most inspirational, greatest role model-for-you teacher you’ve ever had is still alive or is findable by you by any means, you need to go to them, now, while they’re still here, and you need to tell them that, by God, it was them that made the difference in your life.
Because why wouldn’t you? Your best teacher, I can assure you, didn’t become a teacher for the access to the glamorous faculty lounge, or for the exciting travel (by school bus to local museums and state parks), or for the similar-to-hedge-fund-manager-except-for-the-money comp package.
They became teachers (the great ones, for sure) to take promising but dangerously headstrong little buttheads like most of us were and lead us a little way down the start of the long, confusing high school corridor of life.
They walk with us for only a short while, showing us where we probably want to go, and encouraging us that we can make it. The truly great teachers, often unconsciously, show us how they walk, which sometimes allows us to emulate them.
Carl Young was an 11th grade social studies teacher at my alma mater, Binghamton Central High School in Binghamton, New York, when I first plunked my 15-year-old, white-man-fro’d self in his classroom in September, 1978. American history was our curriculum that year, and American Government was the elective course I chose to take with him the following year.
I learned an enormous amount about America’s foundations and framework from Carl, which has engendered in me a lifelong involvement in economic policy and the media and politics. It’s my profession and my passion.
But Carl Young also showed me how to walk — by running. During that ‘79-’80 school year, Carl — already an elected member of the Broome County legislature — decided to run for the County Executive’s position, the highest local executive office in our region. He ran on the power of ideas and optimism and won handily.
Carl also inspired me to run for office myself four years later (albeit as something of a sacrificial lamb) for the New York State Assembly. (At age 21 that year, I was shredded by a brilliant fellow named Jim Tallon who had won the race for the seat five consecutive times before that and four times after. That’s the way I choose to remember it 32 years later, anyway.)
But I’m pretty sure the story of that ass-whipping at the age of 21 was my ticket to admission to the Stanford Business School and the many great things that have come my way since.
I didn’t ask his age, but I’m guessing Carl is in his mid-70’s now, retired and living in upstate New York. I believe I had seen him once, a good 15 or 20 years ago, and had lost touch since. (Carl’s not exactly a social media denizen.) To my great surprise, I got an email from him (he tracked me down via an old mutual friend) saying he and his wife Sil were coming to Denver for a wedding and wondering if I might have time to get together.
That’s like Plato getting a note from Socrates saying he was swinging by Athens and did he have time for an Ouzo.
Suffice to say we had a wonderful three hour lunch, swapping very few reminiscences but all kinds of ideas about education and healthcare policy reform, 21st century economic growth drivers, and our national slasher film of a presidential election. It reinforced my long-held belief that this man was the Rosetta Stone for much of the way I think and what I’ve made of myself.
I told him so when I dropped him and Sil off under the portico of their hotel. I told him that no one in my life had made more of a difference in what I’ve done and who I’ve become, and that I was incredibly thankful for him. I gave him probably the biggest hug I’ve ever given someone who wasn’t my spouse or child, and he gave it right back.
I believe by his reaction I can safely assume that deep gratitude and an explanation thereof must be just about the greatest thing a teacher can hear from a former student. As I wheeled the car around to leave, I saw him say something to Sil, with a big smile on his face, as they walked toward the hotel door. She smiled back at him and reached over and lovingly rubbed his lower back.
I’m not much of a teacher myself, and therefore not a very good advice-giver, but I think this tip’s worth hearing anyway: If your Carl Young is still alive, go find them. Tell them what they meant to you and how grateful you are for all they did for you back then and how it has reverberated in your life through all the years since you left their classroom.
Other than living the life they helped teach you to live, it might be the one and only way you can properly repay them for what they’ve done for you.
Thanks again, Carl.
