Bridging The Gap

 

Marcene Holverson, me, Bryan McCorkle, my mom

All teachers and students begin with the same type of relationship.  The one knows something the other does not, together they work so that both know the same thing, and for the majority of those thus engaged, the relationship progresses no further.  This is not to say that teachers and students do not care for one another, often quite deeply, but there is a gap existing between them that, while narrowed by this and that, is rarely bridged so that a new type of relationship is formed.  But what happens when it is bridged?

The Pontifical Nature of Teaching

All teaching is pontifical in nature, which is to say, it involves bridge building.  As I wrote in another post, "Matters of faith and religion connect the human with the transcendent, and a teacher, no less than a priest, is a pontiff, which, as the Latin root pontifex reveals, is a bridge builder.  Teachers help to connect students with ideas, with others, with themselves, and at times even with what lies beyond it all."  With Marcene Farley, there was another bridge being built during my senior year in high school, although we were both unaware of its construction or where it would lead.

Marcene arrived as the new Latin teacher for the start of my senior year and was called Miss Holverson back then, having not yet met her husband Mack.  She did the things that a good teacher does and then some, including taking my friend Bryan and me to the state Latin convention.  This, of course, required Roman attire, and Marcene participated right along with the rest of us.  Then again, she clearly had a penchant for dressing up in class, but this was all part of her strategy for helping to build that bridge between her students and the life of ancient Rome.

 

The Other Side of the Desk

When people become teachers, they often speak of moving to the other side of the desk, which is to say they gain a new perspective on what goes on in a classroom.  Nearly everyone knows what it is like to be a student, but the view is far different from the position of teacher.  Fortunately, I had in Marcene a teacher who was also a colleague.  Although we never taught in the same school, we talked many times over the years, often at length, about issues in education and with our particular students.  We shared triumphs and heartbreaks in a way that only teachers can, for teachers are involved in that most human of enterprises, the shared journey of discovery, and like any journey, there are both pinnacles and pitfalls.

I was fortunate to speak at Marcene's invitation on a number of occasions once she had moved back to Illinois was teaching at Pekin Community High School.  Three times I had the opportunity to address the Illinois Junior Classical League convention when she hosted it at her school and performed my presentation of Cicero at the Eta Sigma Phi convention at her alma mater, Monmouth College.  I was always pleased to speak at her invitation, and there was an excitement for both of us.  We were able to reconnect not only as teacher and student, but as colleagues, and it was clear that the bridge was extending far from what it had been when I was in high school

 

De Amicitia

Cicero (106-43 B.C.) wrote a treatise on friendship called De Amicitia, or "On Friendship."  A passage I have quoted often says this.  "Qui esset tantus fructus in prosperis rebus, nisi haberes, qui illis aeque ac tu ipse gauderet? Adversas vero ferre difficile esset sine eo qui illas gravius etiam quam tu ferret."  (De Amicitia, 22).  "How great would be the benefit in good times if you did not have someone who would rejoice in them as much as you?  Indeed it would be difficult to bear adversity without someone who would bear it even more gravely than you."

Marcene was with me when I was named 2014 Indiana Teacher of the Year and she was with me again when my son and I saw '80s hair band Stryper near where she lived.  In fact, she was the one who yelled to leader singer Michael Sweet to get his attention, which led to the first of my many interactions with the rock star.  It was no surprise that she would do this.  After all, she once talked with Dee Snider of Twisted Sister about his Latin tattoo!  Cicero was right in what he said, for both of those moments were all the better for her being part of them.

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Dee Snider and Marcene

When her husband, Mack, passed away, I traveled to Illinois for the funeral.  I wouldn't have missed it for anything.  I was there to support my friend in keeping with the second part of what Cicero wrote.

And I was there for Marcene's retirement party at the end of the 2021-2022 school year.  There was a constant stream of people for hours that Saturday afternoon as former students, their parents, and colleagues came to show their love for a woman who had touched so many lives in such profound ways.  My only quibble with the event is about one of the gifts she received.  Someone gave her a mug that says, "I came, I taught, I retired," but that last part only expresses a momentary fact of history.  The mug should have read, "I came, I taught, I shaped lives in ways I will never know."