What I Taught Without Meaning To

Thirty-one years of lesson plans,and what they remember is the daythe fire alarm went off mid-fractionand I kept teaching anyway, chalk in hand,walking them calmly out still counting on my fingers.

Decades of careful units on simile,and what comes back to me, unprompted, in the grocery line,is a boy named Peter telling his own sonthat Mr. Horvath taught him how to wait his turn.

I thought I was teaching mathematics.I was teaching them what a grown man looks likewhen the building might be burningand he does not let you see him hurry.