I first met Doc M. in 10th grade when I was a student in a multidisciplinary, mixed-grade, oversized class for gifted students called Resource. I always liked when he taught our large group of 10th through 12th graders, because he entertained a certain amount more silliness from us than most of the other teachers on the team, even though the whole idea of the class was to promote creativity and undertake lessons and projects that we weren't getting in our "regular" classes. "Doc," as everyone called him, definitely had a dry wit about him that the other teachers seemed to lack, and he allowed us to express our teenage version of wit, too, and even seemed to genuinely appreciate it.

When the senior students were caught teaching us new sophomores how to spin our pencils around our thumbs (without dropping them) and we got "busted," he came around to find out if he, too, could get the lesson, since it was obviously more interesting than his discussion of the Renaissance period.

And when he caught us talking in the library, having used our Resource passes to get out of study hall to go there at pre-arranged meeting times to gossip in the stacks, he would ask us innocently what project we were discussing with such enthusiasm, and when he might be seeing our report on it. We always ended up finding something legitimate to do then, out of guilt and appreciation for us not giving us detention for abusing our Resource library privileges.

It wasn't until 12th grade though, when I had him for Honors English, that I really began to appreciate Doc.

I signed up for Doc's Honors English class instead of AP English, despite my mother's pleas otherwise, specifically because I liked him so much from my two years of team exposure in Resource. It wasn't the bow ties he wore every day, or his neatly trimmed beard, distinguishing himself from the somewhat frumpier appearance of his peers that made him different or better ? more professor-like than that of a high school English teacher. The subject he was teaching, and the books we had to read weren't so different from the other two teachers' senior Honors English class; the curriculum was pretty standard in my school. But he was still able to quell the groans of our class when he handed out "War and Peace," which was thicker and denser than anything any of us had read. We all read, it, too. And his live reading and "translation" of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" is something I'll never quite forget.

Once, Doc wrote in the upper left corner of the blackboard, just behind and above his desk, "Brevity, Clarity, Relevance." Those three words, he told us, were the three Gods of writing. I remember. Is it a coincidence or not that I write for a living now?

Ultimately, it was Doc's personality and the way he related to his students, and the way he dealt with us, that makes me think of him first when I think of a teacher I loved, a teacher well-versed in the art and style of teaching.

Doc understood teenagers. He recognized that we wanted to be noticed while simultaneously blending in like chameleons; that we acted like we knew everything, but we didn't want to feel demeaned or "caught" when we didn't. He recognized the desire we seniors had to be adults, and he treated us that way, even though we were all stranded in that purgatory middle layer of no longer being children, but not yet being real adults.

He always gave students who were talking during class, late, or goofing off the benefit of the doubt, and challenged their occasional off-behavior with a witty rhetorical question or comment. For example, after Doc announced to our 1st period class, which started at 7:30 a.m. when we were all still half-asleep, that we were permitted to bring our McDonalds, Pop-tarts, and coffee into class as long as we cleaned up after ourselves, he put his foot down nicely but firmly the day that one student showed up with a toaster:

"Mr. Early: I'm fairly certain that when I gave you and your peers the latitude to bring in breakfast that I was not envisioning electrical appliances to be among the items you are permitted to bring to class. If your breakfast isn't already fully prepared by the time you arrive, you'll have to go without it."

I'll always remember the first day of class when Doc passed a stack of 3x5 cards around the room for us to list our name, address, phone number, and all of the books we had read that summer. Smart thinking! No one had ever asked me what I was reading on my own 'til him. He probably used that information to gauge our reading interest, level, and frequency, but I didn't think of that then. I was just glad someone cared enough to ask.

I've been out of high school 15 years now, and I haven't seen Doc since then. But I heard from a friend of mine who now teaches at the same school that he's near retirement age now. I know he'll be sorely missed. He really does embody the kind of teacher I can only hope to be someday, if I'm really lucky.