Making a Difference: The Power of Observation

The power of one teacher’s observation changed my father’s life–and thus mine.

Benny was a harum scarum young man in the 1940’s. The eldest child in a family of four with a dad who often wandered off, he was raised in a poor family supported by my grandmother’s job in the tool room at a local defense plant.

The family took in boarders, slept on couches and hitchhiked to get around. A skinny, scraggly kid with an attitude, Benny smoked, played craps, often was hungry and frequently sought “an angle,” any angle, to get by.

A smart aleck or something else?

I’m sure many of the adults he encountered thought him a smart aleck, but one teacher saw something else.

One day in a typesetting class in high school, the teacher pulled him aside. “What are you going to do when you graduate, Benny?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Get a job. Maybe I’ll get a job as a typesetter. I’m at good at it.’

“No.” The teacher declared. “You should not get a job as a typesetter. You’re a smart kid. You need to go to college.”

College?

Smart?

These were new concepts and the mere suggestion opened a window in Benny’s mind.

No one in his family had gone to college (Technically that’s not true. We later learned one of his ancestors attended William and Mary in 1750).

No one had any money for college. What a ridiculous idea.

Or was it?

Benny looked at his classes differently and applied himself. He started saving money and talked to a counselor about how to pay for college. My grandmother, who loved and craved education with a passion, supported him as best she could.

He applied for a Naval ROTC scholarship and when told he’d get one, he asked to leave California to attend the University of Michigan.

The Navy demurred, how about something closer to home and less expensive?

UC Berkeley accepted him. Benny made plans to go.

I can imagine my grandmother quivering with excitement at the thought. But a month before classes started, Benny got the bad news. No funding. No money for him to go to school.

The idea stuck

The idea of college set fire to his ambitious mind. He knew he could be more than just a typesetter now, he had caught the vision.

Benny switched to UCLA, just over the hills from Burbank. My grandmother scraped together enough money to pay for car fare the first year.

A quirky guy, Benny filled his academic life with ups and downs, extravagant stories of jobs worked and lost, an old car that ran on a paper clip.

But the poor young recognized college could help him become someone the like of which he’d only seen in the movies.

UCLA changed his life; it gave him a life. He met my mother there and suddenly the world opened to him.

“You’re a smart kid.”

Someone recognized his potential and told him. That brief exchange changed everything for my father.

And for me.

One person. One observation. One different life.

Who can you encourage in the same way?

Tweetables

How one teacher’s comment changed an entire family’s life. Click to Tweet

Tell a kid what they’re good at it. Someone will thank you. Click to Tweet

The power of observation gives me life. Click to Tweet