While working to become the next Ernest Hemingway and write the next Great American novel, Joseph Walpole saw a sign – literally. He saw an advertisement on a bulletin board looking for teachers, and so he called the phone number.
If you had asked him years ago, he would not have guessed that he’d land at Miami Lakes Educational Center as an English/AICE teacher. Despite this, he is officially the school’s Teacher of the Year, and proceeds as a finalist for the district award. This award recognizes his unique presence in the classroom and the impact he has made on the lives of countless students.
“I did not choose teaching; teaching chose me,” said Walpole
Walpole began his education career in the Virgin Islands. There, he met a ninth-grade student named Patti. Patti sat in a wheelchair, seldom spoke, and held a blank expression, often silent, never smiling. While she depended on others for physical help, Walpole wanted to show her the power of being mentally independent.
“I helped her to challenge assumptions, to make inferences, to ask questions, to weigh evidence, to question her own biases, to observe and to puzzle over things.” Walpole continued, “She became willing to stare at an idea, to stay with a line of reasoning – to think.”
With his help, Patti was able to “overcome the limitations placed on her by the rest of her body.” In fact, she became the first millionaire in the batch of students he has taught. He gifted her a small replica of Auguste Rodin’s classic statue, The Thinker. She gifted him a customized Christmas card featuring a Santa edited into the pose of The Thinker, and every year, for almost forty years, she has sent him a Christmas card with that picture.
This is why he teaches – that Christmas card, and every other Christmas card he receives from his past students. Today, he receives cards from around the globe.
Another element models his attitude towards a day’s lesson in his class – his daughter, “the treasure of [his] life.” He imagines her sitting in his classroom and asks himself, how do I teach her the necessary skills to live a good life? What is the best way? By thinking of her, Walpole says a teacher that is honest, full of purpose and motive, and – most of all –considerate.
“Mr. Walpole teaches each student in the manner that he would teach his own daughter; with respect, with kindness, and with absolute belief in their ability to succeed,” said MLEC principal Lourdes Diaz.
“I teach to the spirit. I want all my teaching practices to reinforce a sense that my students can face life’s great challenges,” said Walpole.
He continued explaining that his lessons should “engrain values, the old verities that will anchor them through life, truth-seeking, responsibility, courage, compassion, and respect for oneself and for others.”
With time comes progression and change. Teaching to the heart has gradually become more difficult with the integration of new standards, new tests, and technology in the classroom. However, in the midst of the books, the phones, the tablets, and the iPads, Walpole stays conscious of the significance of bringing it back to the real world and all it entails.
“I try to help them decide what is important in life and how to make meaning out of seemingly random experience,” Walpole said.
“Their lives are the real texts of the course,” he said. “I try to make each lesson one that is relevant to their world.”
While he does appreciate the award, the true reward, he believes, sprouts from the accomplishments of his students. The professions of his pupils range from architects to accountants, bank tellers to chiropractors, fashion designers to fire fighters, and web designers to roofers. It always comes back to them.
“Their success inspires me,” he said. “Their very lives.”
But in a way, his ambition to create the next Great American novel did not fall flat. Rather, the effect of his work transcends into lessons that live far after the end of the school day and break through the barriers of the classroom wall. What started out as an opportunity on a bulletin board, a quick airplane ride to the Virgin Islands, and an interview with nuns turned into something bigger than the road he envisioned for himself. Now, he gives a piece of himself to every student he teaches, and they, in return, grow up to “contribute richly to the life of our times.”