Brendan Wallace

A Message of Gratitude:

As I was proctoring over a final exam last spring, I felt this excitement flood over me. I think that it stemmed from recognizing some free time at hand- time I chose to reflect upon what I have seen and done this year. It brings me great joy to look back at this year. Several months ago Don Kish, a valued volunteer and Teacher Emeritus at The Grauer School, asked me: “Brendan- do you know the difference between wisdom and age?” I must have looked confused because he responded “nothing” with a wink and a hearty laugh. Being the quietly didactic man that he is, Don didn’t talk at length about what the comment meant to him. Instead, we talked for some time about how my algebra students were doing and the methodologies that I had employed [as well as those that I had not]. I spent much of that day and the days since thinking about his comment- perhaps wisdom might be demarcated by the scars on us rather than by our perfections. Both the embodiment of and the means through which someone gains wisdom could mean a million different things to a million different people. For me, this dialogue came at exactly the right time. We were somewhere near the end of third quarter before Don made this comment and I found myself internalizing some of my failed lesson plans as failures. I felt some of my well-planned lessons falling short of their aim. Oftentimes, I would follow these classes with lesson plans that were even more planned, only to meet mixed results with my students. I don’t know if it was just my good luck that Don spoke to me that spring day or if I was just transparent enough for him to see my disappointment with myself, but Don’s brief comment really gave me hope. The most wonderful thing about the employees and volunteers at this institution is, hands down, the fact that we nurture a vision of hope. I cannot think of any event in my life in which there wasn’t an opportunity to learn something. We see this wonder in the beautiful eyes of toddlers and, when we’re really lucky, our students. For adults, awareness of the incessant opportunities to learn is one thing “on paper” and not necessarily something we practice at all moments. Furthermore, it takes great strength and courage to put this awareness into action. It’s so much easier to dismiss days as “bad” than to take a good, long look at not only what made a day “bad” but also why that day could ever be called as such. Teaching is such a privilege because, amongst a great many other perks, we are given constant feedback. For those of us with an open heart, teaching reminds us of the poignancy of each moment- of the risks we run of living an unexamined life.

Other Interests:

Astrophysics, Basketball, Tennis, Surfing, Singing, Fishing, Hiking, Biking, Painting, and Reading