Mr. Frakes: In His Own Words
The master teacher shares his ideas about teaching, languages, and students in this wide-ranging interview.
The Yucca Valley High School family suffered a tragic loss this past week. As part of our tribute to foreign languages teacher Mr. John Frakes, we’d like to present this interview, conducted May 2018 by YVHS graduates Zoey Mahan and Leisa Morin.
How long have you been teaching?
At Yucca Valley High School, this is my thirtieth year. I also taught three years in the Midwest before I moved out.
What inspired you to move out here?
Well, I finished up my master’s degree, and I was looking around, and I needed a job to help pay off student loans, and so this came up. It was a German/French position at the time. I had a couple job offers on the east coast, and I always thought I’d be on the east coast, but I looked at the salary and the cost of living, and [I thought] this may be a better choice. So that first winter out here when I didn’t have to scrape windows on my car, I said, “This is not a bad place. You might stay here.”
What inspired you to teach foreign language?
We had a foreign exchange student in my high school, and she was from Brazil, and I was just fascinated. I thought she was fabulous, and she came there, and she brought her culture to the school. I went to a very small high school, so we had several exchange students throughout my high school career, and it just kind of put a passion in me to to explore.
Learning foreign languages helps us “to develop more tolerance for the world, to build curiosity within yourself to want to see more than just what we have to offer in our country, to welcome immigrants who bring their culture.”
Do you think it’s important to learn new languages?
I think it’s very important not only for the process of the brain, but also just to develop more tolerance for the world, to build curiosity within yourself, to want to see more than just what we have to offer in our country. Also to welcome immigrants who bring their culture because our country is such a melting pot of cultures that that’s what makes us Americans.
It’s always amazing when you travel abroad as an American and you can speak to people in their language because they think we’re all idiots and we can only speak one language. [Laughs.] I always try to be a good ambassador for the United States.
You’ve taken a few trips outside the country with students.
That’s why I’m bald and gray. [Laughs.]
What kind of impact did traveling after high school have on your decision to pursue a teaching career?
Initially, I went into international business when I first started…when I went off to college, and I just hated all that stuff. I hated the accounting. I hated economics. I hated statistics — you can all understand that. [Laughs.] And so I thought, okay, what else can I do with language? In my younger years, I’d thought of teaching, so that just kind of steered me towards that. It’s really cool to take a kid that doesn’t know anything of what I teach and to see how far along I can bring them. And that is something that I find really rewarding for myself.
It’s really cool to take a kid that doesn’t know anything of what I teach and to see how far along I can bring them — that is something that I find really rewarding.
Studies have showed it’s easier to learn a language when you’re younger. Did you start in high school?
Yeah, in high school because that’s the basic American model — we don’t want to put the money into the younger years. All they offered was Spanish, so I had two years of Spanish.
When did you start learning French?
I graduated a year early, so I was a junior when I went off to university, and I started German there. Then, with family problems that occurred, I dropped out for a year, and I worked in a tire plant making radial tires for Firestone and saving my money. Then I went back to school the next year, and that’s when I started French. So I actually started German before French.
Can you share some of your favorite experiences taking students to Europe?
It’s always stressful as teacher to take students to Europe, and I’ve got some horror stories I could share with you, but I won’t do that here. [Laughs.] I think just the overall thing of taking a kid for their first time out of the country — they know I’ve been there several times, Ms. J’s traveled with me several times as well — and just to watch them grow [is special]. The trip we usually took was like a sixteen-day trip, and it was just fascinating to see them as kids almost turn into adults before your very eyes because they have to do some problem-solving on the spot. And so it really brings them a long ways.
I have a special job because I get to see kids from ninth grade to juniors or seniors — however long they stay with me. I see these scrawny little kids coming in, but I get to see them change into adults. They actually are more like my kids then because I saw that part of growth in them, and for me, that’s extremely special.
I remember one group I brought back, a mother said to me, “What did you do to my kid?” And I said, “What?” And she said, “Well, it’s not the same child. She acts grown up.” Australians often send their kids away for a year to bum around Europe because of that experience of exposure to many cultures, and they’re all so close that you really pick up on little nuances between cultures. So you know, to pick one particular event that I’m very fond of for my trips, I really can’t narrow it down because I’ve taken so many of them over my career.
But I can tell you, you lose students and then you end up finding them, and they wander off in the wrong spot, they freak out, so you can usually track them down. You always give them the hotel address and make sure they can go to a taxi, you know, or ask someone if they’re not too terrified. There’ve been other things, too — a kid playing soccer in a hotel and kicking the ball down the hall and taking out a glass window that was about ten-feet by twelve-feet wide. So those are things that you kind of have to deal with that are kind of like nerve-wracking. It’s been quite an experience; [I] loved every minute of them.
What’s your favorite part about educating others?
You know, when I hang around friends in my age group, they seem much older than me. So I think that being around youth actually helps [teachers] stay more connected to where society is going. So that’s kind of an advantage of it. I have a special job because I get to see kids from usually ninth grade to juniors or seniors — however long they stay with me — so I see these scrawny little kids coming in, you know, they’re just obnoxious most of time, but I get to see them change into adults. So they actually are more like my kids then because I saw that part of growth in them, and for me, that’s extremely special. That’s extremely special.
One of the best things you could ever do is, ten years out, send an email to a teacher and say, “You know, I was thinking about you.” Because that really is our reward.
If you could go back in time and choose a different profession, would you?
You know, teaching has had its ups and downs over the last thirty-three years. My first job was in a right-to-work state, and I had to work in a gas station on the weekends just to buy food because the salary was so bad. So I think that kind of points out my dedication. I would have left the profession long ago before I even moved to California, if that were the case, but I don’t think I probably would. You know, I’m getting close to the retirement thing, and that really is bugging me, too, because it’s, like, almost a crisis. Like, what in the heck am I going to do? You know, oh my God, I’m gonna lose touch with the world!
I always tell my kids, “You might be the ones I graduate with.” It can be a stressful profession, but it has a lot of rewards, and it’s not cash. Actually, it’s on seeing kids. One of the best things you could ever do is, ten years out, send an email to a teacher and say, “You know, I was thinking about you” because that really is kind of our reward. That’s kind of the reward.
