What I Taught Without Meaning To

Thirty-one years of lesson plans,“and what they remember is the day“the fire alarm went off mid-fraction“and 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 son“that Mr. Horvath taught him how to wait his turn.“

I thought I was teaching mathematics.“I was teaching them what a grown man looks like“when the building might be burning“and he does not let you see him hurry.“