Recently, one of our friends asked which teacher from our high school had the biggest impact on my husband Kyle and I.
We’re a group of six Richmond High School class of 2013 graduates, so while we all had different teachers at times, our school was small enough that we were aware of all of the teachers. And with it being graduation season, I find myself thinking about my teachers a lot more.
It was a tough question for me, honestly, because I had some really incredible teachers who made a huge difference in my life and in my education. Was it Mrs. VanHam, my trig and pre-calc teacher who took me from a D math student to an A math student? Or Mr. Osadchuck, the choir director who spent five years helping to cultivate my love of music and gave me the confidence to stand on a stage in front of people, as well as taught me songs I still regularly sing to my niece and nephews and dogs? Señora Wolfe, who taught me Spanish and inspired a love of Spanish language and culture, which I went on to study in college? Mr. Applegate, my AP 12 English teacher and theater director who created a safe place for expression for so many students and taught us about working hard for something you’re proud of, since we as a group put blood, sweat and tears into every production?
All of those teachers are teachers I think about on a regular basis, with fondness and incredible thanks. But one made the biggest impact on my life, and that was Mr. Murphy.
Mr. Murphy was the yearbook coordinator, which meant he knew every single student by name. He was the first person in the high school every day, earlier than even the zero hour all girls choir, of which I was a part. He greeted me every morning with a loud, echoing, enthusiastic, “Stewie!” a nickname only he and my locker neighbor ever used.
Due to a scheduling issue that year, Mr. Murphy’s schedule was over-booked. He was an English teacher, a history teacher, and he was the yearbook teacher and the newspaper class teacher. The solution he came up with was combining yearbook and newspaper into one class. We took over one of the computer labs for fourth hour and he was a skilled enough teacher to successfully run a monthly school newspaper and a yearbook at the same time.
Not only did this class inspire my career in newspapers, he also made me co-news editor with a classmate who I would later marry, my husband Kyle. We spent many hours together keeping the paper running smoothly, especially on print days when we realized how many people had procrastinated their articles and needed help getting the other sections of the paper laid out and ready for print. Kyle and I were the reliable pair that were able to get things under control. Mr. Murphy even assigned us to work together on a story for the upcoming school bond, the first of many school bond stories I would cover in my career.
So, while I had many teachers I loved, Kyle and I always say Mr. Murphy had the biggest impact on our lives.
With it being graduation time, I always think of the teachers I had that made the biggest difference in my life, both academically and personally. And when I talk to people in this area about the teachers they had, one name always comes up as having the biggest impact on them: Lynne Schank.
I sat down with Schank this week to talk about her career in teaching. She taught one of my most difficult subjects: math.
“I always taught math, applied math, algebra 2, and always calculus,” she said. “It’s the best subject. It’s right or wrong. If you write an English paper, if the teacher doesn’t agree with you, you get a lower grade. With math, it’s right or wrong.”
Schank was inspired to go into teaching by her mother, who was also a teacher. Her mother graduated college at 20, and Schank set a goal to do the same.
“I wanted to be an actuary, but at the time I was in school, you had to live in a big city and I wanted to live in the country,” she said.
Schank began her teaching career in Pontiac, but left the district when she heard that a former student had been shot. In the fall of 1974, she started teaching at Brandon School District and stayed there until she retired in 2006. Since then she has continued to tutor area students in math to give back to the community.
“For the last 19 years, I’ve tutored for free,” she said. “Well, I do charge, I say they have to say ‘I love you,’ to mom, dad, grandparents, whoever they’ve got at home. I’ve had kids whose mothers didn’t make it home, I’ve had kids walking home and their best friend was killed, and they were glad to tell them that last message.”
Schank said when her parents were older, she stayed with them to take care of them for three years until they both passed away, and it was an experience she talked about with her students.
“One kid told me, ‘what an honor for you to be able to take care of them,’ and a few weeks later at the parent teacher conferences, the parents came in and I had told them the comment he made,” she said. “The parents said they never knew how much he loved them, that he saw something like that as an honor. How lucky am I to be able to tell them how much their son loves them.”
From students who went out of their way to give her a hug every day to students she helped grieve a family member, Schank said she had so many incredible experiences that made everything worth it.
“I’ve been a conduit to help others, and that’s the most beautiful thing in the world,” she said. “Let other people do for others. You need to be an example. I don’t really see the kids once they’re gone, but I hopefully got to help them, and help them enjoy not just math, but doing what they can do for others.”
Whenever the topic of teachers comes up at a community event, I have a lot of Brandon graduates who mention Schank as a teacher who had a lasting impact on them. Schank said she has heard from students who weren’t even her students.
“I was at the grocery store, and a woman tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I had taught at Brandon,” she said. “I didn’t have her as a student, I had her sisters. She wanted to go back to school at 52-years-old. The most beautiful thing in the world, she wanted to go back and be a therapist, and she asked if I would help her in math. I met with her nine days, four hours each day. And I’m putting in four hours a day, she’s putting in a lot more. She was so dedicated, she wanted to succeed, I was honored I got to help her.”
Talking to Schank, I was so honored just to hear about her dedication from the teacher’s perspective. I know how impactful teachers can be, and as students, we don’t always realize the impact we have or had on the teachers.
“I feel honored that I got to meet and help students and meet such wonderful parents,” she said. “And hopefully I give back enough that I have paid. I’m hoping what I have given back has not been a deficit for me living. What I want is people to give to others, that’s the most important thing people can do. I think I’m one of the luckiest people in the world.”