Zach Loesch, third place, adult

Email this article  Printer friendly page

I am an adult now in my 50s who attended Gloucester High School over 30 years ago in the building that today serves as Page Middle School. I can clearly recall a history teacher I had at that time named Mr. Murray Davis, a man who has passed away but whose memory remains as a fresh inspiration to all of his students. He was a Humanist, a disparaging term in our time, but a good example of an ethical human being who was not especially religious. He grew up in poverty and often told his students that he could remember putting tape on garbage can lids in order to wear these on his hands during gang fights he had been involved in as a youth. Yet he grew up to be a thoughtful and often kind individual who worked at what he loved. He was a man who never stopped working to improve himself or those he came into contact with. He instilled a love of learning in his students through his passion for his subject. He would often approach students on school grounds after class hours to converse with them as equals, as if their opinions and concerns were of importance to him. He was stern yet approachable. He was a strict disciplinarian with a good heart. Students not only obeyed him but hung on his every word. Although he is now gone, he remains the ideal model of a teacher and what it is they are supposed to do. He was a true professional in an occupation that is often incorrectly thought of as a glorified baby-sitting. He lives in the imaginations of the people who knew him and this is perhaps the best sort of immortality we all aspire to. May 9th is National Teacher’s Day and this essay is my tribute to the man I remember as being the best teacher I ever had.