Today, I begin my 26th year of teaching elementary school.
I also learned yesterday that Lester Maroney, my friend and former high school French teacher of four years, sadly passed away in February. Mr. Maroney and I reconnected two years ago after I managed to locate his address and send him a lengthy letter describing the positive, memorable, and still echoing impact he had on my life.
We’d been exchanging letters ever since. I had wondered when I would receive another, but sadly, I have received my last.
Lester Maroney was an enormous figure in my high school career and significantly impacted my life.
A week rarely goes by when I don’t think of him fondly.
His hilarity, sincerity, and exceptionally unorthodox behavior allowed me to flourish in his class. I found my voice in Mr. Maroney’s classroom. I was allowed to be myself. I was permitted to make people laugh, challenge authority, dare to be different, and turn every French class into an adventure.
Admittedly, I also spent much of my time in his classroom sitting on a platform beside him because of my behavior, but even that was okay.
It meant I got to spend more time with the man.
I developed a great deal of confidence under Lester Maroney’s guidance during the four years I spent in his classroom. He made it a place of safety, honesty, and connection and set an example of what real confidence can look like.
He was a man who did not care what others thought. He dressed flamboyantly, skirted the rules whenever possible, spoke his mind, and taught in ways that likely made clueless administrators cringe.
Years ago, I found a record of successful legal action he took against the school after the principal reprimanded him for an incident in which he “made use of a learning center to socialize with students and became embroiled with the person in charge of the center.”
This sounds exactly like Mr. Maroney.
Mr. Maroney shared stories about his life in a way I had never seen a teacher do before. Every day, he came to French class with some bit of ephemera from his life, and with every utterance, I grew to trust and love this man more.
Mr. Maroney would also hand out detentions as if they were candy and would smile while doing so.
Forgot your homework? Detention.
Laughed at a joke? Detention.
Tripped while entering the room? Detention.
At one point, I had amassed 87 detentions, which he claimed was a world record. I spent most of them playing chess with him and chatting about life. It interfered with track and field practice quite regularly, but otherwise, it wasn’t bad. In fact, I think Lester enjoyed those afternoons together and was liberal in handing out detentions to me as a result.
Lester would also assign a zero as a test grade for poor behavior, meaning that despite your ability to speak, read, and write French, you could fail if you did not behave well. Then, on the cusp of the end of the quarter, he would offer extra credit assignments to erase those zeros and save your grade.
Lester was also fond of nicknames, so early into my freshman year, he began to refer to me as “Dickus.” This oddly didn’t seem too bad considering the other variations of my name used throughout my school career.
I began calling him Lester in response, and he didn’t complain.
When my brother came along a year later, Lester modified the name to accommodate Jeremy’s arrival. I became “Big Dickus” and my brother became “Little Dickus.”
A victory of sorts for me, I suppose.
Mr. Maroney could not have survived in today’s teaching climate, and that is a damn shame.
My high school didn’t offer a fourth year of French, so when I asked about the possibility of taking another year of foreign language, Mr. Maroney created an independent study for me, allowing me to tutor a French 3 class (which my brother was taking) while working on some more advanced assignments independently.
As a result, Mr. Maroney awarded me the French Award at graduation. He handed me that plaque onstage, shook my hand, and I never saw him again.
As a teacher, the lesson I learned from Mr. Maroney was simple but important:
The lessons we teach outside the curriculum make the biggest differences in a kid’s life. The examples we set, the confidence we nurture, the trust we grow, and the encouragement we offer students to find their voice and develop tenacity, grit, kindness, empathy, and relentlessness are far more important than the content we teach.
Today, I can speak a little bit of French, read a little more, and still recite French poetry by heart, though I don’t always know what I’m saying.
All of that is fine, but what Lester Maroney taught me about myself has made a lasting difference in my life.
It’s often said that “Content is king.” This may be true in the publishing and online world, but in teaching, content is never king.
Teachers who think “Content is king” fail their students.
Teachers are in the business of helping young people become the best versions of themselves. We teach kids to read, write, solve math problems, and all the rest, but in the end, the quality of their character will be most important when it comes to giving them a positive, productive, and happy life, regardless of that skill they learn or knowledge they acquire in our classroom.
Content should always play second fiddle to the important stuff. Lester Maroney taught me that. He changed my life because he believed it.
My life has been positive, productive, and happy, thanks in part to Lester Maroney.
Rest in peace, Mr. Maroney.
