Welcome to what was Mr. Lanza's St. Mark Catholic School Web page. As most of you know by now, thanks to administrative ineptitude, pastoral apathy, and diocesan indifference, regretfully, said school no longer exists. I haven't attemped to delete the Web page partially because of I've been occupied with getting on with my life, but also for the obvious sentimental reasons. I just don't want to take it down. So, I've decided to add a blog page and update that as often as I can, and let the rest of the site serve as a sort of on-line memorial to a school I was proud to attend, serve, and quite often be forced to defend. My initial blog postings will be dealing with my reflections of St. Mark, its sad but totally avoidable demise, and what's been going on since. I encourage your comments. Thanks.
 St. Mark's final graduating class (with respects to whatever will be posing as the SMS "Class of 2014" at Pope - sorry, stashing half a class in a single classroom on another school's campus so they can "graduate together" doesn't qualify in my book) During the "flea market" St. Mark and the diocese so quickly organized for other schools the week after school let out (I wonder where that kind of expediency and efficiency from administration was during the year, but I digress), I was rummaging through boxes of "personal effects" collected over 11 years at the school, when I discovered a CD that I thought I had lost some ten years earlier. Somewhere in the move from my original homeroom in what eventually became the science lab, to my new 6th grade digs after my first year at St. Mark, I had misplaced - and feared that I had accidentally thrown away - a CD of '80s songs burned for me by Pili Flores, one of my favorite students of all time (and yes, contrary to what we teachers say, we do have favorites, so deal with it :) ). Pili graduated that year, 2003. She was a walking anachronism. Her retro ways and quirky ideas on life were refreshing, and endeared her to all her teachers, including me. I was the rookie, having stumbled into a teaching position at the very school where I had graduated 20 years earlier.
Pili and the other students throughout my three classes that year had to put up with the ups and downs of a first-year teacher, and as that year came to a close and with my June wedding approaching, I pondered deeply whether I had made the right choice to leave Publix after 14 years to pursue a career in teaching. Aside from my then-fiancee Anne, whose support for me has never wavered, and of course, Pili's hugs, a daily ritual with all of her teachers, this CD, which I played repeatedly during planning periods and after school while grading papers, kept me from losing it over these last couple months of the school year. First, let me clarify about the hugs. The "Pili Rule," she called it. I had throughout my teacher training been told that such contact, innocent as it was, was strongly discouraged, so imagine my reaction when this 8th grade girl wrapped her arms around my waist on day one and squeezed the life out of me, then proceeded to deliver daily Heimlichs for an entire school year. Petrified, I expressed my concerns to a couple of my colleagues. No need to worry, they said. Kathleen Capp, our science teacher at the time, said with a smile that she couldn't imagine herself getting through the day without one. From that point on, silly as it may sound, I felt acceptance from those hugs, as if I were truly on par with the other teachers - a validation, I guess, that throughout that first year I so desperately sought. I credit my long-term memory and the reigning title of "Pit of Useless Information" that goes with it, as one of my greatest attributes. If anything, it might come in handy if I ever summon the courage to take Anne's advice and go on Jeopardy!. So, one could understand my disappointment that before playing Pili's CD for the first time in ten years, I could only recall two tracks from the entire disc - the first one, The Outfield's "Your Love" and the last one, "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles. I know it had been ten years, but I played this thing on a virtual loop for six months during the pre-iPod era. Without a track listing to guide me, I popped the CD into my laptop and listened. As period music is wont to do, the songs, ranging from "Steppin' Out" by Joe Jackson to INXS's "Kiss the Dirt" to "Japanese Boy" by some one-hit wonder named Aneka (actually had to Google that one) put me back at that desk, in that room, in that school one more time. I smiled as I thought of the the conflicted teacher I once was (Who was that guy?), of the husband/father/mentor/trusted grown-up I became, and for all the incredible people who would never have come into my life otherwise. And then, nearly two months after all this madness went down, I shed yet another tear for St. Mark. Thus began my latest period of rage over the rapid yet completely avoidable demise of St. Mark Catholic School. NEXT: Part 2 - The End of an Error |
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