It's Hard To Keep A Good Man Down
[Editor's note--Over the past two weeks, I have been interviewing educators, legislators, and government officials as well as analyzing financial data on the subject of public education funding in Wisconsin before continuing my series of articles on this important topic. Every time I think I am ready to write the next part in the series, I learn something new . . . . I apologize for the delay but not for taking the time to do the work necessary to get the story right. When the information I have gathered have been fully analyzed and reviewed by the people kind enough to spend many hours talking to me during the past month, you will see what I have learned. Forgiving the bad grammar, that's what economictruth.org is all about--the truth. Until the series on public education is ready to print, I am taking a look backward at my four years in public education and several people who were an important part of that ime in my life. It is a part of my professional career that I miss very, very much. It is also a part that I hope to regain very soon.]August 13, 2009
On Sunday, August 2, I was able to see my former principal, Mr. James DeBroux, for the first time in almost six years. It was not in the place that I would have wanted that meeting to occur, and I know it was not the reason either of us would have wanted to meet after such a long time. According to the infromation I received, Mr. DeBroux (he was never "Jim" to me--I am very "old school") who is 64 and just a year short of retirement, fell two stories off a ladder while painting his cottage when a railing against which the ladder was resting collapsed. Miraculously, he sustained no head injuries, has only a bruised spinal cord, and broke both his big toes. Unfortunately, he also broke three vertabrae in his neck and suffered what I read was a complete spinal cord injury. At this time, he is in Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but if Mr. DeBroux is the man I remember (I was only able to see him for less than a minute but hope he recognized me) him to be, he won't be there for long. You can't keep a good man down, and Mr. DeBroux is a good man.
Our family knows Froedtert Hospital very well. In 2005, our daughter Kristina was there for rehabilitation after God miraculously healed of brain death caused by a traumatic brain injury from which the doctors said she would not survive
[Editor's note: more on that subject at a future date]. After only two weeks, she was sent home to complete her recovery and resume her college education. Soon, Mr. DeBroux, I am believing that you will leave Froedtert and go home to complete your recovery.
Mr. DeBroux was my first principal. After completing my student teaching and earning my bachelor's degree in history, it took me 24 years to get to pursue my dream and calling . . . to teach high school social studies. It was a desire I thought would never be fulfilled, but Mr. DeBroux saw something in me that caused him to give me a chance when no one else would. In October, 2000, he took a flyer on me. He brought me into Mosinee High School with a master's degree in business administration and almost 20 years adjunct college teaching experience at the college level. He even gave me credit for five years of that teaching experience. In short, he gave me a shot at doing what I had always wanted, but never thought I would get, to do.
From the outset, he stood with me as I made a series of rookie mistakes. I was 46 going on 22. He stood with me when things got thin and thinner that first year. Even when others did not want me retained for a second year, he stood by me. No one had done that for me in a very, very long time.
Although I grew and matured my second year under his command, it was the third year that proved to be my undoing. By that time, I had integrated the National History Day competition in our government course and the Hewlett Packard Global Business Challenge into our economics course. I had written and implemented what I thought was an effective World Cultures course using a limited amount of resources. Wanting to always push a little harder, I had not heeded his counsel and had tried to do too much at one time. The fault was mine. That over-extension, combined with several other issues where I stood my ground when I possibly should have yielded, caused him to have to let me go--to ask me to resign or have it known that I had been non-renewed. He asked me to make the choice on January 13, 2003, and I submitted my resignation four days later. I cried that day, not just because I saw the end of my dream but because I had failed the man who had come to mean so much to me.
I never really told him how much I appreciated what he had done for me and how much it meant to me that he had stood with me when so many others wanted me to be sent packing. I was too hurt by what had happened. I did not look at my role in the situations that had occurred. I was wrong. Although I sought to be allowed to withdraw my letter of resignation based upon contractual issues I discovered subsequent to Mr. DeBroux's decision, the resignation stood, and I was unemployed. After the night of my final hearing in August, 2003, I did not return to Mosinee High School, nor did I see Mr. Debroux. Time, circumstances, and a lot of hurt made that too difficult. I never thanked him for what he had done for me; I only remembered what I thought he had done to me. Again, I was wrong.
In baseball, it's three strikes and you're out. Sometimes, though, we get a shot at redemption. It took more than four years for me to get that opportunity for redemption, and it ended a year later, but that is a story for another column . . . . For now, however tardily (I hope that is a word, Mr. DeBroux) or poorly it may be said, I want to say, "Thank you". Thank you for giving me the opportunity to pursue my dream. Thank you for standing with me when others could or did not. Thank you for being gracious to me even when I was not gracious in return. I will never know what it cost you to stand by me those three years. Please forgive me for not coming to you when all was said and done and parting as we should have--as professional colleagues and perhaps, for me at least, as friends. I was wrong then; hopefully, at least in some very small way, I have made it right now.
Many of these thoughts and memories came flooding back to me as I drove to visit Mr. DeBroux and as I spoke to his son Jon eleven days ago. Almost daily, I am reminded of what God did for us four years ago when He raised up our daughter when almost everyone said she would never recover. She is now the mother of our first grandchild. It took faith--perhaps the gift of faith that the apostle Paul discusses in his first letter to the Corinthian church--to see our miracle. It was the result of many, many people praying over and for her from the moment she arrived at the hospital until the time she went back to college two months to the day after the doctors said she would never recover.
This past weekend, I achieved another dream. I became an ordained minister. The month that I resigned my position at Mosinee High School, I began Bible college classes, and I graduated in May, 2008, with a B.A. in Theology. In August of last year, I became a licensed minister, and four days ago, I was ordained.
Fortunately, it does not take a man or woman being licensed or ordained to pray for a miracle. It also does not require great faith. Jesus said that faith the size of a mustard seed is all that is needed to see mountains moved. So now we are praying for your miracle, Mr. DeBroux, and I am confident that hundreds, if not thousands, of people have been praying and will continue to pray for you until you are fully recovered. I hope to have the privilege of seeing you again very soon and talking about the good times--past, present, and future. We might even decide who will make it to the World Series first--your Milwaukee Brewers or my Chicago Cubs.
Until then, be blessed.
From the Editor's Desk Archives
Public School Funding: Fact and Fiction (Part 2) (July 28, 2009)
Public School Funding: Fact and Fiction (Part 1) (July 27, 2009)
Health Care Reform: Protecting the Disabled (Part 5) (July 24, 2009)
Health Care Reform: Protecting the Disabled (Part 4) (July 23, 2009)
Health Care Reform: Protecting the Disabled (Part 3) (July 22, 2009)
Health Care Reform: Protecting the Disabled (Part 2) (July 21, 2009)
Health Care Reform: Protecting the Disabled (Part 1) (July 20, 2009)
And Liberty and Justice for All (July 13, 2009)
