To Sir With Love

Father Frank is what we called him. Not to his face, of course. In class we called him Mr. Militano, because that's what you called teachers, especially back then. But he was so much more to his students than any other teacher. He was that teacher whose classroom was always the meeting place for kids after school or before school, or whenever we could be there. And there are times, even today, more than 40 years after the junior year American Literature class at Jefferson Township High School, when I am still that high school girl with hair nearly to my waist and paisley dresses that just barely met the dress code, writing probably very bad poetry, deep inside. Sometimes I just don't feel any older and I remember those days so well. I always loved to read, but Frank Militano taught me to love literature. He taught us the standard curriculum of junior English: American Nobel laureates, Harper Lee, Thorton Wilder, Robert Frost -- not the cutesy Frost of "Stopping by Woods," the surprisingly deep and cutting Frost of "Home Burial" and "Fire and Ice." But in his hands, the standard curriculum was far from mundane. Our class discussion were intense. No one's contribution was unimportant. No student was unimportant. Macbeth is the Shakespeare play juniors all read in those days and he had us perform scenes for each other and really understand that Lady Macbeth was really just a teenager, too. So much of what I learned about putting words on paper, I learned in that classroom from that wonderful teacher. And so much more. We could talk to him about anything. Many of us returned on college vacations, to thank him and to tell him how he prepared us not just for college English classes, but also for the new life we were discovering. We always knew we could talk to him. The essence of a great teacher, the reason great teachers should be paid as much or more than great doctors or scientists, is the ability to connect with every student, every day. And those students never forget. Which is why, when my mother called me yesterday to tell me Frank Militano had died, I was once again that 16-year-old in that classroom and I felt such a deep pain in my heart. He was a religious man and I know he is still that great teacher, watching over all his former students. Goodbye, Father Frank. This is my way of writing a thank you across the sky.