<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Even if school wasn\u2019t your favorite place to be growing up, I am going to lay odds that you have memories of at least one of your teachers.\u00a0 While attending school was always one of those things we were mandated to do before we were set free into \u2018the real world\u2019, there were always varying degrees of acceptance.\u00a0 On one side of the ledger, there were the, \u201cI can\u2019t wait to blow this pop stand\u201d students and on the other side, the \u201cI want to go to school forever\u2019 types.\u00a0 The bell shaped curve of education placed the majority of the population somewhere between those two extremes.\u00a0 Love it or hate it, everyone I talk about school with has their own \u2018memorable teacher\u2019 story.\u00a0 Not all of these stories recount pleasant memories, but they do seem to have taught us something.\u00a0 As it goes in any other profession, teachers end up doing a lot of learning on the job.\u00a0 In doing so, we make our fair share of mistakes.\u00a0 Good teachers learn from their miscues and improve.\u00a0 If one doesn\u2019t find more effective ways of reaching their students, then it is probably advisable one should find another line of work.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0My public school education stretched from 1958 to my high school graduation in 1971.\u00a0 Undergraduate studies from 1971 to 1975 earned me the credentials necessary to begin teaching in Ontonagon in the fall of 1975.\u00a0 In my day, a permanent teaching certificate was earned if one accumulated 18 post-graduate credits and taught for a certain amount of time.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t happy about getting laid off for the 1979-80 school year, but that break in my public school service allowed me to finish the credits I needed to obtain a Masters of Arts in Geography.\u00a0 When the economic climate in Ontonagon improved with the founding of the shipyard, I returned to my old job in the fall of 1980 and remained here until my retirement in June of 2018.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0If you are keeping score, I spent 59 of my 70 years \u2018in school\u2019.\u00a0 How many of us are lucky enough to say, \u201cIncluding my two years as an inmate (okay, student), I spent 45 years in Junior High?\u201d\u00a0 When I joined the district, the 1600 plus students enrolled in Ontonagon meant I taught five seventh grade Geography\/Earth Science classes and a large study hall.\u00a0 As the school population decreased over the next four decades, I wound up teaching various combinations of classes in grades 6 through 9.\u00a0 My one year as the Elementary Reading teacher was an anomaly but still enjoyable.\u00a0 My contact with high school students was more limited – study hall (when we still had them), senior service project (my last five years) and radio lab (beginning in 1997 up through the present day).\u00a0 I found that teaching a variety of subjects over the years (including 6-7-8 Geography\/Earth Science, Physical Science 9, English, Social Studies, History, and Phy Ed (the last four were all in 7th grade)) was more work, but actually kept me sane.\u00a0 I am not sure how other teachers deal with teaching a full schedule of the same class every day for years on end, but for me, it was more fun to have some variety.\u00a0 If the teacher gets bored, then there is a 100 percent chance that the students in their classes will also be bored, no matter how compelling the subject matter is.\u00a0 A colleague in the science department commented, \u201cHow on earth can you have everybody working on different things at the same time?\u00a0 That would drive me nuts.\u201d\u00a0 There is a lyric to an old Doors song that sums it up for me:\u00a0 \u201cVariety is the spice of life!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0During my student years, I had a lot of teachers who added something to my education (mostly positive but I would be lying to say there were no negative things that cropped up) .\u00a0 Out of all the educators who supplied me with the tools I needed to become an adult and a teacher, I am going to take a little time to praise one in particular.\u00a0 His name was Don Aronson, my sixth grade teacher at Whitman Elementary School in Marquette in 1964-65.\u00a0 Mr. Aronson moved back to his hometown of Escanaba in 1967 but he remained in the teaching game for 56 years.\u00a0 Anytime I would meet someone from Escanaba, I would ask if they knew him and the answer was always the same:\u00a0 \u201cOh yes, I know Don.\u00a0 He is just a wonderful person.\u201d\u00a0 A meeting with the Treasurer of the Northern Great Lakes Synod (ELCA) in May of 2024 brought me news that was not totally unexpected but sad just the same.\u00a0 Hailing from Escanaba, she got my usual \u2018do you know\u2026.\u2019 line of questioning to which she replied, \u201cYes I did.\u00a0 I live near his sister but I am sorry to tell you he passed away in February of 2023.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I made it a point to find a copy of Mr. Aronson\u2019s obituary and was amazed how little I actually knew about his life.\u00a0 Yes, we can always remember the interactions we had with our favorite teachers, but those revolve around school.\u00a0 We tend to forget that teachers are people with lives – just like \u2018real\u2019 people.\u00a0 I always liked running into a student in a store and hearing, \u201cMr. Raisanen, what are YOU doing here?\u201d \u00a0 \u201cAh . . .\u00a0 shopping,\u201d was my usual reply.\u00a0 I found that Mr. Aronson also had a full life beyond the 56 years he spent as an educator.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Don Aronson was born in Escanaba in 1931 and according to his obituary, \u201cWith only brief interruptions, he lived his entire life in Escanaba.\u00a0 He was a beloved teacher and faithful church organist.\u201d\u00a0 He graduated from Northern Michigan University in 1954 and began his first teaching job at Whitman Elementary School.\u00a0 It is a small wonder that I always thought he was a cornerstone of my old school.\u00a0 Whitman opened in 1953 (the year I was born) and he was a fixture there during all my early schooling.\u00a0 My older brother and sister both had him as a teacher and from K – 6th grade, he was always involved with school programs, especially if they included music.\u00a0 Back in those days, it was still okay for schools to hold lavish Christmas pageants that included each grade singing a few carols and the older kids performing in the Christmas Story.<\/span><\/p>\n When the Junior High band did a concert tour of the Marquette elementary schools in my eighth grade year,\u00a0 there was Mr. A at the back of the gym taking it all in.\u00a0 This took place in the spring of 1967 and I did not realize that it was to be his last year at Whitman.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I had known that he commuted to Escanaba to play the organ at Bethany Lutheran Church every weekend.\u00a0 Apparently a particularly bad blizzard drive back to Marquette during the winter of 1966-67 convinced him it was time to seek employment in his hometown.\u00a0 From 1967 to his retirement in 2010, Aronson spent the rest of his career teaching 6th, 5th and 4th graders in the same classroom he secured in 1967.\u00a0 One of his former 6th grade students embroidered a plaque for him that summed up what his career was all about:\u00a0 \u201cA teacher affects eternity.\u00a0 No one can tell where his influence ends.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When I had heard that he retired from classroom teaching in 2010, I sent him a card.\u00a0 In it I gave him the thumbnail sketch of my (up to then) 35 years teaching in Ontonagon.\u00a0 I reminded him that I still blamed him for planting the seed for my future career back in 1965.\u00a0 Mr. Aronson was passing back our standardized test booklets so we could see how we did.\u00a0 I do not remember the score on the cover, but he handed me the first science packet (he always gave out the top score first) and asked, \u201cAre you planning on being a science teacher?\u201d\u00a0 The natural reaction was, \u201cAh, no\u2026no I am not.\u201d\u00a0 I thought of that moment eight years later when I stopped in and told my new college advisor that I wanted to sign up for the teacher training program.\u00a0 This was at the beginning of my sophomore year in college and Mr. Machowski looked at me and said, \u201cYou should have done that last year!\u201d\u00a0 I replied, \u201cWell, I didn\u2019t actually decide to go that way until just now, so what do I have to do?\u201d\u00a0 With that point cleared up, we set up my next three years of classes that would eventually land me in Ontonagon in the fall of 1975.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There were other tidbits about his life I learned scanning his obituary.\u00a0 My brother had mentioned that he has Mr. A the year he returned from a two year stint in the Army.\u00a0 He had been stationed in San Francisco, CA and true to form, managed to be the church organist for Ebenezer Lutheran Church while he was in the service.\u00a0 Don had actually begun playing the organ in church at the age of 15.\u00a0 First, he played for the Swedish service and the children\u2019s choir and a year later, he graduated to playing for all the services.\u00a0 Even when he had to miss some services after knee surgery, Don had made sure he recorded all the music for the Sundays he missed.\u00a0 If his church plate wasn\u2019t full enough, he also accompanied the Senior Choir, played piano for the Youth Choir, directed the confirmation Bell Choir, kept church attendance records, taught confirmation classes and began an annual confirmation trip to Chicago.\u00a0 Did I mention he also trained and scheduled acolytes and the people who ran the church sound system for radio broadcasts.\u00a0 He reluctantly stepped away from his organist duties in 2019 after serving for an amazing 73 years.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When Don retired from teaching in 2010, he wasn\u2019t done with school.\u00a0 He spent many hours back at his old school tutoring students.\u00a0 His students weren\u2019t the only ones who noticed.\u00a0 Aronson was recognized as the UP Teacher of the Year, Outstanding Person in Education, and he received a Certificate of Special Recognition from the Escanaba City Council.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Did Mr. A find any time to perform community service?\u00a0 Of course he did!\u00a0 Beginning in 5th grade, he often mowed the lawn in Ludington Park.\u00a0 In high school, he served as a DJ on WDBC sitting behind a large glass window spinning records.\u00a0 People passing by on Ludington Street could watch him do his thing.\u00a0 I got into the DJ game at WOAS-FM in the late 1980s but didn\u2019t find out that Mr. A and I had that in common until I read his obituary.\u00a0 Of course, we aren\u2019t spinning records behind a window with people passing by.\u00a0 No, these days we send video and audio of our DJs at work all over the world via our website at <\/span>www.woas-fm.org<\/span><\/a> .<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0If there is one thing in my teaching career that I can trace directly back to Don Aronson, it would be his attitude toward his job.\u00a0 Mr. A never made us think of teaching as \u2018work\u2019.\u00a0 Don himself often said, \u201cI believe that if children believe you are interested in them, they will learn regardless of the methods used.\u00a0 I am very strict, but we have lots of fun.\u201d\u00a0 When I was hired in Ontonagon for the 1975-76 school year, I was given one set of marching orders.\u00a0 The administrators said, \u201cWe have had some discipline problems in the last couple of years.\u00a0 Teach your material as you like, but keep discipline at the top of your list of things to take care of every day.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It didn\u2019t help that I was a 21-year-old who looked like a sixteen year old with a mustache, but I took this very seriously.\u00a0 I resolved that I wouldn\u2019t smile until Christmas, reasoning, \u201cOkay kids, if I plan on being here again next year, this is how I am going to do it.\u201d\u00a0 Yes, I overdid the \u2018discipline\u2019 part that year (a former study hall student gave me a chilling critic of my performance the next year when I had relaxed a bit – and he was totally right).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The rooms in the old three story high school building turned Jr High were big echo boxes.\u00a0 If you did not talk loud, kids in the corners couldn\u2019t hear but everything the kids said came back to the front like a roar.\u00a0 By the second year, I figured out the way to get a class to listen to you is NOT to talk louder.\u00a0 One simply had to talk softer to get their attention (which had the added benefit of making the times when it was necessary to raise one\u2019s voice more effective).\u00a0 Yep, as I remembered back, Mr. Aronson was not one to ever raise his voice and it took me a few years to learn that lesson.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Thank you Mr. Aronson – you were an inspiration to your students, family, and community.\u00a0 There is one other thing that he taught me.\u00a0 He held a weekly drawing in class and the 3 or 4 names drawn from a fishbowl got to go out to dinner with Mr. A.\u00a0 The Jet Grill on Front Street in was one of his favorite places to take students.\u00a0 When I began taking field trips my third year in Ontonagon, I was never afraid of taking my classes to public places.\u00a0 At first it was a little challenging to take more than a hundred students (two buses worth), but it was a great bonding experience.\u00a0 Spend a day on a bus with a group of students (or in Mr. A\u2019s case, at dinner) and one can learn an awful lot about what makes them tick.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0At every level of my education, I encountered teachers who gave me the tools to get along in life and (later) enjoy teaching.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t work if you enjoy it.\u00a0 When I passed the twenty year mark, people would inquire when I thought I would retire.\u00a0 I would always say, \u201cOh, I only get to do this for another ten years.\u00a0 After that, I will see what happens,\u201d and I kept saying it for twenty more years.\u00a0 It became a running gag at school:\u00a0 \u201cRaisanen will never retire.\u201d\u00a0 The day I turned in my paperwork to retire in June of 2018, both the superintendent and the business manager said, \u201cAre you sure?\u201d\u00a0 Yep, it was time.\u00a0 Why am I still volunteering at the school managing WOAS-FM?\u00a0 Like Mr. A showed us, \u201cIf you enjoy what you are doing, it really doesn’t work.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0To all the other teachers I had over the years, I will eventually follow up on this topic so no one feels slighted\u2026.and yes, I do tend to remember the good stuff more than the rest.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 .38 Special with the title track from the movie\u00a0Teachers<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Even if school wasn\u2019t your favorite place to be growing up, I am going to lay odds that you have memories of at least one of your teachers.\u00a0 While attending school was always one of those things we were mandated to do before we were set free into \u2018the real world\u2019, there were always 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