Jerry Freedman Appreciation Post

          It is a rare thing to find a friend you can pick up with as you left off years before; it is even rarer to find that in a mentor.   Honestly it is hard even to find a teacher who remembers you years later, let alone one that will seek you out when he is in town and get tea with you. That is Jerry Freedman.

          As I sat in a tea house covered in pink, purple, and blue fairy lights, my old high school AP U.S. History teacher and I discussed our lives, our kittens, my health and his memories.  He is one of those rare ones where ever story he tells is about someone in his life being miraculous.  He’s been teaching for the majority of his life, and is prouder of his students from all generations than most parents are of their children.  From coast to coast his students are in his life, both because we still long to make him proud, and because he still cares enough to be present.

          Two years ago when my Crohn’s Disease last flared, he visited me in the hospital.  I was in so much pain that I would shake uncontrollably, and lost so much weight from not being able to eat that I weighed less than I had in middle school.  I’m including a photo taken when he visited me.  You can see two the IVs I had in one hand because one wasn’t enough for all the medicine they were pumping into me.  You can notice that my extra small hospital gown was too big for my shoulders.  There’s my hospital bed, my IV pole, monitors; my hair is back because I didn’t have the strength or ability to shower.  You could observe all of this, and yet all you see is one thing: our smiles.   This is someone who saw me at my weakest and reminded me of my strength.

          That is more than a teacher, though I could still site for you everything from Thomas Paine to the Tulip Crisis.  More than that, I know songs from the Roarin' 20s, a ballet created in the 1930s depicting how the reality of the “everyman” is lost on those in power, and I’ll never forget a class presentation I did in the style of how Shakespeare plays were first performed.  I went to an arts high school, and his style of teaching was exemplary of how artists best learn.  I passed all of my standardized tests with flying colors, but more importantly to me now, I can find at least three linchpins of how what I learned from him lead to the person I am today.

          To quote our last great president: “when it comes to developing the high standards we need, it’s time to stop working against our teachers and start working with them…invest in our teachers and our children will succeed.”
          I am a success story because of Mr. Freedman.

Above: Tea at Alice's Tea Cup on 2.1.18; Below: Hospital smiles from December 2015