As soon as I retired, I started having these dreams. The principal walked into my classroom to evaluate me and I was completely unprepared. Or I was driving the school bus down the highway and my tennis kids were hanging out the windows, ignoring me as I screamed at them. Or my seniors in English 4 were getting rowdy and I realized the exercise I had for them was ridiculously easy and boring. Or I got summoned to the vice-principal’s office to find angry parents. Or I turned around from the white board and every single kid was on his/her cell phone. I had these school anxiety dreams about four or five nights a week at first, and it bothered me. Didn’t I really like teaching? Was I always stressed? Was I more afraid of losing my job than doing my job? My current reality kind of reinforced my dreams—I was retired—I didn’t miss it—when I went back to Clemens to visit my friend Cari, I snuck in and out of the library—didn’t miss teenagers—couldn’t believe I found time to teach with all the fun things I have to do with my mind these days.
The dreams have receded now (still have the occasional one), and I find that my perspective is changing. The first thing I realized is that I didn’t miss teenagers, I missed you—my former students. You are the ones who passed through my classroom—the ones that moved me, and inspired me, and melted me, and frightened me, and troubled me, and, oh so many times, made me laugh out loud. Thank you.
So, thinking of you, I feel that stirring inside, that urge to teach (I honestly thought it had dried up.) But that seems so arrogant—who am I? What do I have to say that could make a difference? And if I had something to say, shouldn’t I have said it back then?
What was I trying to get across when I did teach? I was never one of those lesson plan guys—what were my lessons? (I used to tell my students before a test, as regards cheating, that in five years they would never remember what they got on the test, but they would know in their hearts if they were dishonest—that seems like an okay lesson.) I loved teaching English because it was mostly about literature, and literature was about people and life. I loved teaching Creative Writing because it was really about opening up your mind. I loved teaching/coaching tennis because it was about how you conducted yourself and the relationships you formed. With so many fond memories, I think about what lessons I hope I might have passed on to you.
The first is this: Life is good.
There are a couple of geese, Anwar and Cleopatra, who live out here at the Bandit. They’ve been here at least as long as I have. I think their home is around the 13th green, because that is where I see them most. But I also see them flying around low to the ground, over fairway and rough, or floating out on Bandit Bay. Sometimes they huddle together below the 13th tee, as if they like to watch the golf balls go by overhead. Every evening they waddle up to Mary Ford’s house, where she gives them their dinner. My wife tells me that geese mate for a lifetime. I look at Anwar and Cleopatra, and I think, life is good.
Now that I’m retired, I play a lot of golf. My very favorite golf is with our men’s group on Wednesday and Friday and Saturday mornings. Everybody throws in $10, we divide into teams, and we play competitive golf. It is so fun! When I hop into my golf cart and drive up the hill on those mornings, I can barely contain the joy that is throbbing in my veins. And I know that life is good.
But that’s just me. There are a trillion other paths to joy. My wife gets up a little later than I do. She’ll pour her coffee and look out the window. Sometimes it’s the hawk that lives in the wooded area behind our house. A few weeks ago it was the incredible flock of multi-colored butterflies who adore the flowers that she grows. Lately it’s been the lone hummingbird who forgot to migrate with the rest of them and sits alone on our feeder. It’s like Disneyland out there.
Believe me, I’m aware that life is not always good. I’ve heard about the bombing of hospitals in Syria. Chemical warfare. Isis. Intentional starvation. Wall Street greed. Sexual harassment. Prejudice. And you can’t just blame it on man’s inhumanity to man. The fires in Los Angeles, the floods in Houston, the earthquake in Mexico City. We call those things “natural” disasters. I cannot come up with any neat prescription that explains away the rampant pain and suffering that pervades our entire planet. (Though I’d like to write about that another time.)
So maybe I have to change the text of the lesson: what I meant to get across in my classroom is that life is meant to be good. That is the intention. Contrast the hurricane and the volcano with the morning dew and the evening sunset, which are far more frequent occurrences. Go for a walk in the woods. Fall in love. Watch a mom and a baby. Play with a kitten. Learn to drive. Lose yourself in a book. Make art. Cook your favorite dinner and top it off with a glass of wine. Really pay attention at Christmas. Life screams out at you that it’s meant to be good.
So what if yours isn’t. Don’t lose hope. If you took my Creative Writing class, you wrote a journal. I’d collect them at the end of the semester, scan through them, and give you some ridiculous grade. I was reading one girl’s and I realized she could be suicidal. I kept her after class and in talking discovered she was definitely suicidal. We went to see the school counselor and the girl went to Laurel Ridge. About ten years later I heard from her—she was getting married and she wanted to thank me. Wow.
Yeah, nice story, but “don’t lose hope” is a bromide, not a plan. What if your life isn’t good right now? There is something you can do at this very moment, and I promise it will work. Do good. Think of something nice you can do for somebody else, and do it. The Buddhists (or is it the Hindus?) call it karma, and the Bible says “As a man sows, so shall he reap.” It is a natural law. What you put out comes back to you. It’s not black and white, and you don’t get to choose how it transpires, but that is how it works. Whatever your circumstance, do the right thing (your heart will tell you), whether you feel like it or not, and you will move forward. Life is meant to be good.
One of my favorite teachers, Ms. Stepp (I think it’s Rhodes now) used to have a bumper sticker on her door: “Practice random acts of kindness.” I have an amendment: “Don’t make it random.” Look for every opportunity. There was this poem we read in my CW class where a woman was walking along the beach and she discovered a pelican with a fishhook pinning its jaw to it’s wing. It was flapping around, unable to do anything, obviously distraught. (A trapped pelican is a pretty fearsome beast.) But she went up and gripped it and was able to free the bird from the hook, and it flew away, wild and free. The last line of the poem is: “Virtue: what a sunrise in the belly!”
We could all list a thousand reasons why life isn’t good. But if it is meant to be good, it becomes crystal clear what our assignment is: make it better. Do good.
Double enjoyment here: Reading your excellent lesson and reading Scott’s reply. Dallin, I always believed that teaching literature should have much more to do with exploring how to live than with determining whether a piece of fiction contained the elements of romanticism. Scott, I still walk the Cibolo Creek bed. I’m delighted you have found someone with whom yo share your life.
The dreams sound like your classic anxiety dreams. You don’t have the same purpose or demands you had when you were working. Now what?! A whole path before you with very little structure. Sounds like you are navigating it just fine. Go for the goodness. I know I am.
Love,
Gretch
I’m not a former student, but thank you for the lesson anyway!
You’re welcome.
Love this! Thanks Mr. Malmgren!
First off, thank you. I’m not going to lie; me and school did not get along when I was a kid. You were witness to That train wreck and its conclusion. That said, know this; you are one of three names I remember and honor when it comes to teachers past.
It was in your classroom that my writing was born. I hated writing. Not the storytelling, the physical act of writing. I’d prefer to spend my days daydreaming something or another to the mundane and banal work that someone would have me do. School work was boring. I’d sleep through class and ace tests in everything but math. But YOUR class?
I still have the map that I drew on the back of a book cover. I still write that world and it’s characters twenty years later. I do it to tell stories to my wife, to make her smile and geek with her about. I don’t do it to be published, or rich or *shudder* famous. I do it because it makes my wife happy. That’s it.
There’s where and how your lesson hit home. That’s how it’s carried by me, pack on my back and stick in hand and walking on all of John Muir’s trails of dirt. But because of you, I have something I never expected to have; love. Someone to walk with me, to trade stories with, and to grow old with.
You’re right. Life is supposed to be good. Some of us just take a decade or two to learn that.. :p
If ever you want to walk a pilgrim’s trail, it’d be my honor to teach you a thing or two. Starting with a stick.
Mr. Malmgren‑I still almost 30 years later could never call you by your first name‑I will tell you what you taught me as I sat in your class all those years ago…
You taught me no matter when I walked into your classroom that I was guaranteed a genuine smile from you. When I talked to you, whether it was about an assignment, a question on a paper, or anything‑I would not be dismissed or short answered because you had other things to do or students to teach. You taught me in the moment that I mattered. This is what made you a great teacher. Yes, you reinforced my love of Creative Writing, great Literature, and all that is English class, but you also taught me about character. You taught me life is what you make of it and it is ok to be different. These are the lessons I’ve carried with me throughout my life. I can think of other teachers I’ve had and what made you different. This is it. It wasn’t always easy to be in your class, (there was a time I hated my journal, now I’m known as a wordsmith by my friends!) but most good things don’t come easy.
Thank you Mr. Malmgren,
One of your former students-Becky (Kolb) Fisher
Nicely said Dallin, made me tear up a bit.
I don’t remember everything you taught me during my freshman year in 1991. I do remember that you reinforced the lesson of respect to me. I will also always remember your love of what you did. Thank you for writing this. I needed this reminder.