Teacher reaches out; students reach right back
Claudio D’Amato encourages all retired teachers to let their former charges know they’re thought of, in these troubled times
I’m a little old for it now and Claudio D’Amato’s a little out of practice (it’s been seven years), but I want to go back to high school and I want D, as they called him (still do), to come out of retirement.
So he can be my teacher. Because everyone should have a teacher like D. And when you read his letter to former students — and their response, their whopping response — you might understand why. You might want him as a teacher, too. (Maybe we can form a class, one with lots of pee breaks, prostates not being what they were. Hey, back off, grandpa, I’m sitting in front.)
“Not Mister D,” says Claudio, 60. “Just D. That’s what they called me.”
“They” to are his student; his former students.
He calls them his “amazing precious people.” And there’s much ownership in that possessive “his.” He has the deed to big pieces of their hearts (and minds); vice versa. “Precious people” is the phrase he used in the email letter he wrote recently to reach out during bewildering times.
It starts like this: “I never stopped being your teacher.”
It continues.
“I really don’t know how many of you amazing precious people who I am honoured to call my former students still have these emails. I do know that I wanted desperately to reach out during this crazy messed up time and let you all know that I’m thinking of you all.
“If you were my students and or friends at Assumption Catholic, remember I still bleed blue and you were side by side with me during the best years of my life and some of the most tragic. Stay crazy strong.”
He addresses the footballers he coached. “If you can still tolerate the memory of my crazy speeches, then, dear men, I’m asking you to stay strong; victory is not about the scoreboard. Victory happens gradually, each play, each quarter. That’s how we will come out of this challenging time.”
He closes: “This isn’t going away any time soon so please know I never ever stopped being your teacher and the dude that had your back. We will get through this s**t!!!”
And he quotes: “The only person you should ever compare yourself to is the person you were yesterday.”
“I wanted my students to know that they haven’t evaporated from my life,” Claudio, who retired in 2013, tells me. He taught at Assumption in Burlington, St. Paul’s in Niagara Falls, in Grimsby and now, in retirement, coaches football at Hamilton’s Cathedral. “I think about them all the time.”
They think about him. He had no expectations. He just wanted his words to come to rest on whatever need those students might’ve felt to hear them.
The response astounded him. Dozens of emails, texts, calls, volleying back to him those thoughts and wishes.
One was from a student who came out to Claudio. He was that kind of teacher, someone you could trust and go to. That student was Dr. Michelle Crispe, who often appears on the Marilyn Dennis show.
“You’re the best,” she wrote. “This was such a lovely surprise. You were, and still are, my favourite teacher. I still talk about the crazy s**t we did in Psych class lol. I have a beautiful blended family of my own now. I feel very blessed. You are right, we will get through this and come out stronger.”
Included in the email is a picture of Michelle, with her wife and their beautiful new baby.
“Some people do things because they’ve got something extra inside their hearts that the rest of us spend our whole lives trying to imitate. My one of a kind, most cherished teacher, my mentor from afar, and a friend, I’ve not stopped thinking about you.”
That’s from Laura Kafal.
Or this, from Sam Magalas: “Funny you reached out. I was thinking about you the other day. I got sucked into the insanity of YouTube and watched a young man with Down syndrome hit a basketball shot. It brought me right back to Ivor Wynne and watching Allan score that touchdown. I am not someone who cried often but I certainly had tears in my eyes when I watched him give you what you later called ‘the biggest bear hug of my life.’”
How does it feel, I ask? To know you’ve touched people so?
He says it’s indescribable and fills him up. But this isn’t about him, he insists. It’s about his students, about reaching out and caring, especially now, and he encourages other retired teachers to do the same.
We’re in it together, says Claudio. “We have to seize the day ... by the throat!” And, he adds,“Hold on to 16 as long as you can.”
Jeff Mahoney is a Hamilton-based reporter and columnist covering culture and lifestyle stories, commentary and humour for The Spectator. Reach him via email: jmahoney@thespec.com