TO TEACH IS TO TOUCH A MIND

It must have been about 1976. I was in a class on global politics with my favorite teacher, Mr. Veinheist. Mr Veinheist had a knack for teaching, I clearly remember the very first day in his class. He pulled out an article on Angola, an African country we, the U.S., were getting involved with. He then went into a tirade about how we didn't belong in that country, how we had a lot of nerve thinking we could fix other countries problems and who were we to push our morality on them when we had our own past to answer to. He then finished up by asking for a show of hands as to who all agreed with him. Every hand went up. He then started admonishing us for our opinion, saying how we had an obligation to use our power and wealth to help the oppressed in dictatorships, how allowing genocide to go unanswered was the the most sinful of all policies. He then asked for another show of hands of who agreed. Again every hand went up. Strolling back and forth in front of the blackboard, he again admonished us for not knowing our own opinions, for bending to the whims of the teacher, and told us to pick up one of the stacks of newspapers in front of him, read them and then write down our opinion on Angola. I looked around the room at the stunned faces of the normal suck-ups who now didn't know what the hell to think. I knew right away, I was going to like this guy.

I got along both great and badly with Mr. Veinheist. He would pull me aside after class to praise my opinions. He encouraged me to reach beyond the low expectations that everyone else had for me. He told me I was squandering my intellect, that I could be anything I wanted to be, and it was a crime to allow myself to end up working in the shops, or at the bowling alley, or some mail room. He looked beyond my tattered blue jeans and long hair and stoned friends, and he ripped into me for reeking of weed or coming to his class high on acid, or downers, or whatever else was going around. I hated the way he would glare at me as I walked down the hall after skipping his class or the way he would never let me just slide when I was caught fighting, or kicked out for partying in the parking lot. I hated the way he would keep an eye on me everywhere, all the time, how he always somehow knew when some other teacher had a problem with me. I hated it because I knew he was right and I cared what he thought.

Mr Veinhiest had a little game he liked to play with his classes. He would combine two of them for a semester and then he would break you down into groups of different sizes and assign you names of make-believe countries. Each countries would have different resources, military might, and strategic placing on the map. Two of them had nuclear weapons. You would then elect a leader and guide your country through alliances and crisis and be graded on your participation. He took great glee at watching how the students would run campaigns to be elected leader, and form alliances. I loved the game. I was lucky enough (or maybe chosen) to be in one of the two countries that had nuclear weapons. I fought hard to be elected leader and when elected moved quickly to form alliances with the other leaders. I then ran and was elected the leader of our alliance. I used everything at my disposal, in the class and out. I was determined to create a one world government, a socialist Utopia.

But I had a Nemesis, Paul.

Paul was a friend of mine, and like a lot of southpaws was sometimes called by the nickname Lefty, or sometimes Pauliegirl, which is another story all together. Anyway, Paul was a brilliant young man and an excellent politician and found himself leading the other nuclear armed country, and soon after that the alliance directly opposite of me. His form of government had a lot of the same traits as mine. Ones that you would expect to find in a country formed by students; Pot legal and clothes optional. Drinking age debatable. Unfortunately, Mr. Veinheist had no intention of letting our little Utopia exist without the normal trappings of global politics. So every Monday we were given made up situations to iron out diplomatically, each one getting more and more serious. As it got closer to the end of the semester the tension between me and Paulie was reaching a peak. He had assassinated my Secretary of State and in retaliation I had invaded one of his smaller countries. The war of words had reached a point where we were both starting to take it personal. We even had to be separated from fighting at a party (which I was glad, it turned out Paul had a helluva right hook). On the last Monday of the last week of the game we were given our situation; Paul had sent a nuclear submarine to my coast as a threat against further invasions and it had "accidentally" sunk one of two of my aircraft carriers. My troops had now captured the submarine and were holding it and the crew in Lew of a full apology and compensation.

The whole next week was full of debates and threats. My countries leaders were behind me 100% as were his. Each solution bartered by the other leaders was rejected one by one by the full alliance. We were both determined to win out in the negotiations. As the week closed, me and Paul had even gotten to the point where we were grilling our mutual friends as to each other's thinking. On the table was one ominous solution, First Nuclear Strike. Our Final paper had to be handed in on Friday and I had become obsessed with the notion that Paul was willing to go balls out to win. I was convinced that he had decided and convinced the others in his alliance that a nuclear strike was the only option that would leave his country standing. After an hour long debate, I convinced my alliance that we had no choice. We turned in our paper, it would be a First Strike.

On the following Monday, everyone waited for Mr. Veinheist to give us his assessment of our solution. Had we called it correctly? Did we do the only thing that could be done? Did I make a horrible mistake, convincing my classmates to kill a whole country of people who wanted only to find a peaceful solution? When the door opened after the bell, I barely recognized the man who had filled our lives with such passion, who had umpired our weeks of debate. He looked like a man who had to tell a third grade class that the pet hamster had died. He stood solemn behind his podium, and looked up at us, tears visibly welling up in his eyes, yet an anger filling his face. He spoke these words which I still here ringing in my ears today, "Last Friday, this class did what no other class has done in 10 years. The leaders of both alliances, with the backing of every one of the leaders of every country, decided to kill the entire planet rather than except anything less than winning. For the first time I am scared to leave this world to the next generation. I can't tell you how disappointed I am in all of you."

And then he left.

For the remaining 45 minutes we talked about what had happened. Paul and I congratulated each other on correctly guessing each other. For two people raised in the north end of Flint it was the only accepted solution; death with honor over losing. Mr Veinheist never came back that day and the next day was a half day that didn't include his class so I never saw him again.

This is usually the part of the story where I tell you all what I learned from that experience. But to tell you the truth, I've been struggling with it my whole life. One obvious lesson you could get from this is never give Ol' H.C. or Paul The Bomb. I can tell you that I owe my fascination with global politics to Mr. Veinheist, after his class I was hopelessly hooked. I never got over the feeling that our world could be destroyed by two egos, unwilling to be the one to concede. I also owe my ability to step outside the normal thinking to him, based on that one, mind-blowing first day. I've always wished that he would have elaborated more on why it was wrong for me to guess right and why he gave me a "C" for it. (Paul would never tell me what he got, his one win.) I can tell you one thing though, of all the teachers that I ever had Mr. Veinheist stands out as my favorite. I'll bet most teachers go through their entire careers never knowing how much they touched their students. Shortly after his class, I quit taking drugs for good and he was a big part of the reason why. I tried to model my parenting after him, hoping that if my kids respected me as much as I respected him, then my looks of disapproval would make them think the way his made me think. I'm convinced that without him in my life, I might not even be here now. Thinking my own opinions, hopefully uninfluenced by outside pressures, thanks to the only real teacher I ever had. H.C.