(Richie Fuchs, the "Art Man")
I could only draw one thing consistently correctly. MICKEY MOUSE! To this DAY Mickey is the only thing I can draw well, and the only changes are what I make him wear. I would draw him so often, Mr. Fuchs would go crazy and say "TRY SOMETHING ELSE!" I just chose not to because it was fun to see Mr. Fuchs bust on me about my Mickey Mouse drawings. When I graduated elementary school he wrote in my yearbook "Yay! No more Mickey Mouse!" Well first day of the following school year, I snuck in a Mickey moue drawing in his mailbox at the school. The next day my brother came home with a long piece of poster paper rolled up for me. It was from Mr. Fuchs. When I opened it, the Art Man drew himself strangling Mickey Mouse! He drew his eyes as X's and the squigly lines around him, showing he was shaking, and a word bubble saying "Andrew! I got your pal hostage!"
Another time I cut my finger with scissors and went to the nurse. It wasn't even a second thought after I got back, but in the middle of class he stopped everyone a presented me with a purple heart like a military ceremony he made right there at his desk. He was HILARIOUS! I loved his class, but I loved the man even more. He retired on the last day of school of my sophomore year of high school. I didn't drive at the time so I ran all the way to the school he was at and found him with my brother. We took picture with him, packed up his car with him, and walked him out of the school on the day he retired. It was an honor to do so. When I shook his hand I said "Good bye, Mr. Fuchs!" And he said, "I am retired now! The name is RICHIE!"
Mr. Fuchs taught for 30 years, so he also had my mother, my aunts, and my uncles. ALL OF THEM. As we talked on the phone today, he reminisced at how he and his wife used to actually hang out with my grandparents house and stay for dinner many times. But this was my mother's teacher! Well it may sound unheard of today but it wasn't back then! The Fuchs family was very close with my family. IN school they kept it professional, and outside, it was their business and no one else's! And my family has quite the history of making life long friends with it's teachers.
Another teacher in particular who was a friend until the day he died was Chuck Broadhurst, the choir director. He was at my mother's and aunt's weddings, birthday parties, over my house for dinner, and his wife even babysat me when I was born. My Aunt Lisa still goes out to dinner with her former teacher Karen Schmidt and Uncle Dave talks to Mr. Sheridan (who I later had as a teacher) constantly. So it was only natural that I too became very good friends with my own teachers. Some who even had my family as students at one time!
I visit every so often my Spanish teacher, Senora TenHoeve, one my my most favorite teachers! She has a beautiful home and I would go for a Spanish lesson, or just for a nice visit. This past weekend I had dinner with my former gym teacher Ms Hymanson in LBI! One teacher who's name is almost famous in Saddle Brook, Mrs. Filipek, I am so close to, I call her Aunt Dottie. Last month I went to a Broadway play with another Spanish teacher of mine, Miss Kline. I babysat for my friend and guidance counselor Ms Schwartz. I was also in Miss Mathias's wedding as an usher in 2006. Our relationship was always professional in school, but our personal friendships, and mutual respect, was always alive and always appropriate. The same as it was when Mr. Fuchs would come to my grandparent's house for dinner.
This was an argument I always had with my former instructor. He would always say students and teachers could not be friend! They won't respect you nor learn from you. My experiences were quite opposite and I was on both sides of the spectrum. As a student, I always respected and LOVED my teachers, regardless of the friendship. And as a martial arts teacher, remembering how wonderful my teachers were, like Mr. Fuchs, I was very REAL to who I was, and got sooooooo much more out of my students. Some of my best friends were once students of mine before. They aren't little kids anymore, they are now close to my age. And I think a lot of successes in my business comes from my friendships with my students, and attributed to the friendships I had with my own teachers.
Speaking with Mr. Fuchs today reminded me of why I wanted to do something with teaching, and I LOVE teaching my martial arts, and I know how much he loved teaching us art. If I could be anyone in the world, I wish I could be half the man he is!
I am a better teacher because of being friends with my students, and I was a better student for being friends with my teachers! So bottom line, your teachers CAN be your friends!
Yours in service,
ANDREW TRENTO
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