Issue link: http://latinschool.uberflip.com/i/97177
Jonathan W.Young Class of 1982 ���In Dick���s classroom, reading was exciting.��� ��� Jonathan Young, Class of 1982 36 Thirty years have passed since I had the pleasure of studying with Dick Dolezal. Thirty years, and I remember those classes like they were yesterday. He imprinted deep within me a conviction that reading mattered. That it could change you. That it could change the world. And that writing concisely and well could not only persuade, but could change hearts and minds, as well. Dick was a precise and economical writer. But he was a genius of a writing instructor. He was a careful and thoughtful reader. But better still, he was absolutely sublime at teaching others to read. He was a true teacher. His highest and best calling wasn���t to cast a brilliant light; it was to reflect that light in others. And he did it with modesty and wit and humor and generosity. He held you to a high standard, but without a drill sergeant���s brusqueness or anger. Yet when you disappointed him, you knew it. And it hurt. L AT I N M AGAZINE In the cramped faculty office he shared with Humphrey Cordes, he had posted a sign. It proclaimed words to the effect: ���The great poets have not been widely read, because only the great poets can read them.��� Dick was surely well read. He loved Hawthorne and Wordsworth, and most especially Dickens. His in-class reading of Jo���s demise in Bleak House captured all of the author���s outrage and emotion, but did so with poise and dignity. In Dick���s classroom, reading was exciting. And 30 years later, at a point in life where many of my contemporaries struggle to carve out reading time, I still get that sense of joy and excitement when I discover a particularly great new writer or when I relive an especially poignant passage of a book I love. That joy is a gift Dick gave me in tenth and eleventh grade English ��� a gift I enjoy to this day. The best teachers, the ones who really matter, give you something you can use for the rest of your life. By that measure, Dick was a very special teacher indeed. I will miss him.