Emmett Shea
1961
Sassamon Photo
Herve B.
Lemaire Award for Excellence in Education
November
23, 2010
Emmett
Shea Introduction – by Ted Bracken
We are delighted to open this
evening’s program with the fifth annual Herve B.
Lemaire Award for Excellence in Education. This annual award recognizes a
current or former teacher, coach, or administrator who has had an extraordinary
impact on Natick students. To qualify for selection, a nominee must have served
for a minimum of 5 years at a public school in Natick.
The award is named in memory of Herve Lemaire, to honor and exemplify his exceptional
commitment to the quality of education in Natick. Mr. Lemaire
served the students of this town as a teacher of French and Latin before
becoming vice principal, then principal,
of Wilson Junior High. He served as its principal from 1966 until his
retirement in 1986. During Mr. Lemaire’s tenure as principal, in a
ceremony at the White House, Wilson Junior High was recognized as one of the
top one hundred schools in the United States.
Each year inductees to the Wall of
Achievement have spoken fondly of the influence a particular teacher or coach
has had on their development. It is
therefore fitting that, as part of the annual Wall of Achievement ceremonies,
we also honor the teachers and coaches who most influenced the educational
climate at Natick High School.
Several years ago when writing to nominate
Mr. Shea for this award, I began with some general observations about
great teachers. I would like to recount
each one and then tell a brief story to illustrate how Emmett Shea embodies these qualities.
First,
great teachers are all passionate about their subject matter
The most
common theme in each of the many letters nominating Mr. Shea
is his passion for his subject, which is history and, most especially 20th century European
history with a special emphasis on Russia.
Second,
great teachers are uncompromising in their intellectual values and the pursuit
of truth.
Mr. Shea set high expectations and expected you to meet them. He
taught us that history is not a process of rote memorization of facts and
dates, but an argument-- and he invited us to become participants in that
argument. In Mr. Shea’s
courses, reading original source material was required (e.g., Marx’s Communist
Manifesto, Lenin’s subversive little pamphlet What Is to Be Done?)
And we were always asked to think for ourselves. A case in point was
the paper he assigned that required each of us to select one of the combatant
countries of World War I (Germany,
Austria-Hungary, Serbia, England, France, or Russia) and write a paper that
made the case (with
documentation) for why that country was primarily responsible for starting the
war in 1914. Donald Kennedy, the former president of Stanford, once said that
the purpose of a great education should be to make us feel more comfortable
with ambiguity. Well, by that standard,
Mr. Shea’s assignment provided the opportunity for us
to learn that lesson. To engage in the “argument”
that is history.
Because the high school library was—how
should I put this politely-- a little shy on serious historical literature in
those days, he went out and purchased three copies Sidney Fay’s 1928 tour de
force “Origins of the World War” and put them on reserve for us to
use. I also recall vividly that we were
asked to write a paper on why communism as a political and economic system was
flawed and destined to fail in the end.
Recall now that this was 1960 and Khrushchev was telling America that
Russia would “bury us.” This was heady
stuff for a bunch of 17-year-olds, but we ate it up.
Third,
great teachers exhibit a kind of “spiritual calling” to the work that they do
that goes beyond its being simply a job or even a profession.
The late Dartmouth professor, Ben Pressey, said it best when he wrote: “We teachers all seem
to fail. What we teach is forgotten,
even how we teach is forgotten, and if what we do lasts at all, it lasts by the
spirit. And the spirit springs more from what we are and how we live than what we know or have done.” – what
we are and how we live.
Two years ago in a wonderful Middlesex
News article by sportswriter and NHS grad Len Megliola
about the Lemaire award being given to Coach John Carroll, Billy
Pettingill, NHS class of ’64, said about him: “[he]
was the most inspirational person in my life.
As soon as I met him I knew I wanted to be a coach. I
wanted to be him." I
wanted to be him!
Well, a lot of us also wanted to be Mr. Shea –well, maybe not in every way--maybe keep a little
more of our hair—but to emulate him, to have his passion, his integrity, his
love of the life of the mind.
And
lastly, I have said that the influence of great teachers is much broader and
more far-reaching than even they could possibly imagine.
Emmett, I have shared with you how your
passion for the great 20th Century story of the rise of communism
ignited within me a desire when I was a recent college graduate to travel
behind what was then called the “Iron Curtain” to several Eastern Block
counties and how those experiences led to my developing a life-long friendship
with a young communist youth who later became deputy minister of finance in the
Czech Republic after the Velvet Revolution of 1989, and how his two daughters
and my two sons also became friends when they stayed with us here in the US
over two summers. And those continuing
friendships all began in your classroom some 50 years ago. Who could have imagined?
In each of these categories, I can say,
Emmett, as so many others who have also written in their nominating letters,
that you were the best and most influential teacher that I ever had – and that
includes high school, college, and grad school.
Congratulations and, on behalf of the many thousands of students you have
taught both here in Natick and at your various callings in the collegiate
world, from the bottom of my heart, and on behalf of all of the students who
have been fortunate enough to have had you as a teacher, thank you. Or, as they say in Russian, Na zdorovia!
Letters in Support of Emmett Shea’s Nomination For
The Herve B
Lemaire Award for Excellence in Education
Letter Submitted by Ken Gray:
I
am writing to nominate Mr. Emmett Shea, long time
social studies teacher at Natick High, for the Herv Lemaire
Award for excellence in teaching in the Natick public schools. I am a 1961 graduate of Natick High School,
and a 1998 inductee to the Natick High School Wall of Achievement. I took both U.S. history and international
relations courses with Mr. Shea.
I
have long considered myself fortunate to have attended Natick High School. A
major reason was the influence of Mr. Emmett Shea.
As
I look back, and having in the meantime been a high school teacher, guidance
counselor, principal and superintendent of schools, I have come to realize that
he was the commensurate high school teacher.
He both inspired us academically and at the same didn’t look the other
way when a little discipline – now called classroom management – was
necessary. Allow me to elaborate.
I
largely attribute my academic interests, my later career as a college professor
and author, and most importantly my “relative” success as an under-graduate at
Colby College, to the preparation I got from taking Mr. Shea’s
courses. While I was in the college
prep program at Natick High, I cannot say I felt much like I was preparing for
college, until, that is, I was fortunate to have Mr. Shea
for U.S. history and then international relations. It was a different world. There were no textbooks, but instead reading
lists, lectures and discussions. Gone
were the true and false tests and steady diet of films that characterized
previous courses in that wing of the NHS building. It was then I began to realize that perhaps
I was not that slow after all; it was then I developed for the very first time
truly intellectual interests. He taught
us a different way of looking at the world; facts, dates and events suddenly
were viewed not as items to be memorized as if they had some intrinsic value in
of themselves, but as evidence for reaching understanding and conclusions. I wrote my first “real” term papers in his
classes. Suddenly we all wanted to major
in history in college. He took us to
conferences in Boston: we actually gave papers at professional meetings. As I look back, it was so different. I was so lucky; there is no other way to put
it.
Yet
there was another part of Mr. Shea, however, that as
I look back, I think in retrospect impresses me now even more about the
man. He was the guy we were all so
impressed with but who was not above straightening us out when we needed it:
the man who made us grow up as individuals.
I remember one incident in particular.
Student-on-student
harassment was very much the culture in my time at NHS. There were several individuals who in
particular were the brunt of this abuse and I must admit a few of the supposed
“leaders” of our graduating class were among the biggest abusers of these
students. One day Mr. Shea witnessed this
harassment. To us harassment was just
normal life in high school; and I think it fair to say most teachers - at that
time - shared this view. Mr. Shea quickly made it clear to us he did not share this
view: it was not ok. He told us he was ashamed of us. He was mad.
I do not think we had ever seen him mad before.
He informed us that it was time to grow up. That was the end of student
harassment by the “in crowd” of the class of 1961. It suddenly became a very un-cool, immature
thing to do.
Now
an important aspect of this incident was that Mr. Shea
did not have to get involved. The
harassment did not occur in his classroom, he was not on supervision duty; it
was at the end of the day, school was over.
Yet he did get involved, he confronted us, he did not look the other way,
and as a result NHS became a better place and we became much better young
men. That is why I have always been so
grateful to have known Mr. Shea. He was a great teacher, but also a person of
character, a true gentleman, and someone to aspire to be like. That is why I am honored to join those who
are nominating Emmett Shea for the Herv Lemaire Award.
Thank
you for your time and consideration.
Kenneth Gray, NHS Class of 1961
Professor of Workforce Education and
Development
Penn State University
Letter Submitted by Ted Bracken:
Great teachers have certain things in
common.
· They are all
passionate about their subject matter.
· They are
uncompromising in their intellectual values and the pursuit of truth.
· They exhibit a
kind of “spiritual calling” to the work that they do that goes beyond its being
a job or even a profession.
· And their
influence is far broader and far-reaching than even they could possibly
imagine.
In each of these categories, Emmet Shea is a special case.
I have been fortunate to have had three
great teachers in my life: one in high school, one in college (a coach,
actually), and one in graduate school.
The most important of these was the one I had in high school because it
was he who first taught me to think for myself.
That teacher was Emmet Shea.
Great teachers do more than teach. Their influence can be life changing and
affect future generations far beyond the confines of a small classroom so long
ago. Let me explain by telling a story.
Last year, my wife Anne and I, along with
our two sons, 16 and 14, were hosts to a young girl, 17, from the Czech
Republic named Julie Triskova. It was her first trip to America and during
her stay with us in Washington, DC, Matt McDonald, who just happens to be the
son of NHS Wall of Achievement charter honoree, Paul McDonald, took her on a
privately arranged tour of the White House where he worked at the time as
Associate Director of Communications for Policy and Planning. This past summer, Julie was able to exchange
the favor when Matt and his wife Amy were hosted by Julie’s family in her
native city of Prague, while they were on a tour of several Eastern European
countries.
It has been 45 years since I took Emmet Shea’s International Relations class at Natick High School,
but these interlocking connections between the Brackens, the McDonalds, and the
Triskas took root in Mr. Shea’s
International Relations class where I first learned to think critically about
and come to terms with what may be the greatest single historical event of the
20th Century: the rise and (at that time) growing threat of
Communism in world affairs.
To this day I remember clearly some of the
reading list: “The Communist Manifesto,” “What Is to Be Done?”, “To the Finland
Station,” “The Origins of the World War,” “Das Kapital.” These were not text books so typical of the
high school experience, but original works by Marx and Lenin and college level
historical treatises by renowned historians.
And I still remember the term papers: In one, we were randomly assigned
a country (Germany, Austria-Hungary, England, France, or Russia) and were asked
to write a paper that made the case (with documentation) for why that country
was primarily responsible for starting World War I. I also recall vividly that we were asked to
write a paper on why Communism as a political and economic system was doomed to
fail in the end. Recall now that this
was 1960 and Khrushchev was telling America that Russia would “bury us.” This was heady stuff for a bunch of 17-year-olds,
but we ate it up.
So it should come as no surprise that,
after all of that exposure to Russian history and 19th Century
radical political thought, I had a yearning to travel behind the “Iron Curtain”
and see for myself what Mr. Shea had been teaching
about. Emmet Shea
had lit the spark and provoked in me a deep desire to see for myself, first
hand, what a Communist system looked like, felt like, and smelled like. As a result, I went to Czechoslovakia (as it
was known then) for two summers: during the tumultuous years of 1967 and 1968,
to participate in and eventually lead an International Work Camp (sponsored in
the US by the Quakers) in the western mountains of the Czech Republic known as
the Sudetenland (which, Mr. Shea had also taught us,
Hitler had so desperately wanted to make a part of his Third Reich). And it was there that I met another camper: a
young, idealistic, youth by the name of Dusan Triska, whose father was a Communist apparatchik and whose
daughter, Julie, would eventually become friends with my own children 40 years
later.
In an ironic twist that would certainly
amuse, but not surprise Mr. Shea, after the “Velvet
Revolution” in Czechoslovakia that took place shortly after the fall of the
Berlin Wall in 1991, Dusan, who had gotten his Ph.D.
in economics, became Deputy Minister of Finance of the Czech Republic under the
presidency of Vaclav Havel, and was responsible for the creation and
implementation of the voucher system that led to transfer of the Czech economy
from publicly owned to privately owned land, companies, and property. From
Communist to Free Marketer in one generation – an outcome that ol’ Mr. Shea was asking us to
consider so many years before.
This story exemplified the true gift of a
great teacher: the power and influence that his teaching has had on people he
has never known or met.