No More School

"Schools out for Summer"
Some of the best words ever!

chrissar, nice to hear another teacher is out there...I've still got one more week, three days with kids, 2 days with teachers who are more anxious than the students to bolt!!

Schools out for summer are definetly great words. Unfortunately they dont apply to me right now. I finished three weeks ago, but am going to take a couple of classes during summer semester so I can get ahead a little. I have to go back next week. But then a week and a half later we will all be at Bonnaroo!!

thanks! It's bittersweet, the end of a school year (though usually a bit more sweet than bitter it seems). I teach 2nd grade; I absolutely love this age. I also taught 1st for two year

p 4154: where do you teach? I had a science teacher in 8th grade who was into the dead, moe. and phish before i even knew there was anything beyond green day!

So I knew this teacher when I was in high school. His name was Jed. (Really.) I never actually had him for a class, but us geeks did all show up for impromptu creative writing workshops in his room after school once or twice a week. (After the first year we signed him up as our "official faculty advisor" because we found out that they'd pay him several hundred dollars annually for what he'd been doing for free for the whole previous year...Sort of our little way of saying 'thanks' and simultaneously manipulating the system...)

He had a hand-lettered poster over his chalkboard that said: that I only vaugely understood at the time.

We swapped a lot of books. Robert Heinlen, Ken Kesey, John Irving, all kinds of stuff. I remember he was reading Tom Wolfe's "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test," one week and I asked him about borrowing it (intriguing title, right?) and he actually said--no. Then he put it on the bookshelf in front of me and left to go to lunch.

Three days later I'd read it and put it back on his desk with a note that said "Thanks." He knew exactly who left that note.

About that time he found out that I'd been poking around listening to the Grateful Dead for a year or so, so he hipped me to the Grateful Dead Hour on the radio. I'd tape 'em and then loan 'em to him. Then he made me a few mix tapes of his old shows and boots. One of those had this song on it, for filler: "Down with Disease" by some band I'd never heard of before...

At the end of my senior year I saw my first Dead show, and met Jed at the setbreak to compare notes. He borrowed my tie-dyed top hat for the second show of the run. Four or five days later I saw Phish for the first time.

I grew up to be a different person than I might've been if he hadn't been my friend and poked at my mind with some new and different ideas...and I love who that person is.

I have no idea what ever happened to Jed. The last communication I have from him was a letter he wrote to me at college about Jerry's death and how it impacted him. But your post about turning a few kids on to the jam bands made me think of him once again. As far as teachers go, he was one that had perhaps the greatest impact on my development.

Kudos to you for carrying on that legacy.