How One Teacher’s Selflessness Inspired Me to Devote My Career to Improving Childhoods
In my senior speech at the end of high school, I said that I would never have the words to articulate the change that Howard Chang made in my life, but when I saw Thrive Global’s weekly prompt about “a teacher who lifted you up and taught you lessons that you still use today,” I decided to take a crack at it, knowing that I can barely scratch the surface in describing his selflessness as an educator.
Howard Chang was one of the most revered — and feared — teachers at Flint Hill. He was revered because his epic classes full of humor and “classic Chang” antics were widely talked about throughout the school. I often told my family that his lessons were like a comedy show: even if you understood none of the subject matter (Latin grammar), you were enraptured and entertained the entire time, without fail.
He was “feared” because of his reputation for being a tough grader — he expected the same level of rigor and dedication from each and every student. While some teachers are comfortable teaching to the “middle” of the class, knowing that the curriculum will be a breeze for some and a struggle for others, Mr. Chang insisted on teaching to the “top of the class,” intentionally designing his curriculum to stretch each and every one of his students. This didn’t just mean his classes were overall harder: Mr. Chang made 3–4 different versions of every exam he gave, differentiated and designed so that each student was stretching to her own individual fullest potential.
Mr. Chang made teaching look easy. Perhaps the sense of humor, pantomimes and nicknames, and zooming around the classroom at a mile a minute came naturally to him. But his in-depth, intentionally designed curriculum did not make itself. Even more than a decade into teaching, Mr. Chang used to work at least one full day of the weekend: grading assignments, creating assessments, and tweaking and internalizing his meticulously created lesson plan for each and every lecture.
While he probably could have gotten away with hours of preparation fewer, he wanted to make sure he didn’t forget a single nuance or example, so that every student he taught received the same quality of work from him.
Likewise, although the school day ended at 2:30, Mr. Chang stayed at work until 6:30 or later every single day, preparing for his next day of teaching. The “extra help” period for students to ask assignment-related questions technically lasted until 3:30, but Mr. Chang never turned away a student who needed clarification or was excited to learn more. I used to wait for the 5:00 bus in Mr. Chang’s room every day for four years of high school, invariably bugging him with miscellaneous Latin questions (some of which I probably could have answered by picking up a dictionary, but knowing that Mr. Chang’s way of explaining it would be more entertaining) and assorted gossip about my friend group.
On many such afternoons, homework questions and “socializing” (as Mr. Chang always called it, with a false tone of opprobrium in his voice) turned into full-on training sessions where Mr. Chang would coach me one-on-one for Certamen tournaments, quiz bowl-style Latin tournaments in which some students competed against other schools on the weekends. Although there was dedicated Certamen practice time every Friday, I would come into room B-235 on random days and ask Mr. Chang to read me questions so I could practice “speed-buzzing,” knowing I would receive awesome tips and tricks and training in between, or we would have a fascinating discussion on some arcane element of Latin grammar that probably only a Ph.D. student would expect to know anything about.
Outside of Latin, Mr. Chang was a mentor in everything I did. I know no one more committed to perfection and diligence than him, and so he was the one who helped me create my first résumé, guided me as I made my first newsletter layout, and taught me the rule of thirds for taking photographs. Something or the other that Mr. Chang taught me has come to my mind, without exaggeration, every single day — whether in college or while working at Living Cities or Aangan Trust.
And these are just the hard skills. As someone so visibly outstanding in his field, Mr. Chang had repeated discussions with me about everything from avoiding distractions at work to practicing humility: how to speak out thoughtfully and share ideas while giving space and respect to others in the room (something we both constantly keep in mind as egregious extroverts). In his actions, Mr. Chang lives his principles to a T, incredibly exacting as they are.
High school was a hard time for me. Wrestling serious mental health challenges, there were days when I came into school with puffy eyes from crying myself to sleep and had to tell my friends and teachers that I was tired from staying up too late (not so — I had a strict self-imposed bedtime of 11:00).
Although Mr. Chang didn’t know this at the time, his classroom provided a safe space for me where I got to explore the idea of being great, and learn whatever I wanted just for the sake of learning, and whine and joke around about stuff that didn’t always matter — surrounded by the kindness and comfort that childhood is supposed to be about.
My love of learning, my career, and my mental safety and wellness today owe a huge debt to Howard Chang.
Not all children have a Mr. Chang in their lives, but the world would be a much happier and safer (not to mention smarter) place if they did. The impact that Mr. Chang has had on me every day is what reminds me that the caring and conscientiousness of one adult can change a child’s life forever. It’s the reason that when I received a text one day in college saying that Mr. Chang and his wife had just had a baby girl, I couldn’t hold back tears of gratitude at the thought of just how joyful Penelope’s childhood was going to be.
