Teacher Ignites Desire To Learn

The lasagna still steamed on our dinner plates as my daughter launched into her comparison of Christianity and Judaism.

She glibly sprinkled sources into her analysis and appraised the evidence with rabbinical concentration. I was impressed, especially because she wasn’t trying to impress.

She was clearly excited and trying to stimulate a discussion to learn more - not a debate to showcase what she already knew.

Inside me swelled an irresistible urge to embrace the teacher who had triggered this thirst in my 18-year-old. What does Lake City High’s Bill Proser have that too many teachers don’t?

I ask him and he ponders the question with the same intensity he applies to everything.

“I have a high opinion of their brains,” he says. “Anything I can understand, they can understand if I can explain it.”

Bill is closing in on 50 and no starry-eyed neophyte. He’s taught high school English for 25 years and awakened the brains of thousands of students. At least several parents credit him with their children’s success in college.

He’s a dignified man, a sort of studious, graying Clark Gable who commands immediate respect. He’s the suit among a crowd of teachers in jeans and flannel, but he’s easily approachable. He addresses his students as “Ms.” and “Mr.”

Teaching is a selfish act, not a calling for Bill.

“I’m not in it for the kids,” he admits. “I’m interested in learning, not teaching.”

A marked difference from most teachers.

Bill’s classroom is a think tank. He invites discussion, opinions, scrutiny, examination. He doesn’t duck controversy, but uses it to bore deeper into a subject. He wants to hear what his students think because he might learn from them.

But he expects knowledge-based views, so he requires students to read and write prolifically and think as fearlessly as he teaches. Their goal is the same, he says.

“We’re all searching for the truth.”

More often than not, Bill’s students rise to the occasion as if someone finally has lifted the weights from them.

“The problem with school is that kids are bored out of their minds,” Bill says. “I want them to think and I want something to happen in my class.”

Compare Bill to the English teacher who requires no out-ofclass reading and yells insults at her students. Or to the science teacher who kills time and interest in the classroom while he waits for football practice. Or to the history teacher who’s so afraid of controversy he discourages class discussions.

Would these teachers want their own children in their classes? Carl Couser’s son is a sixth-grader at Lakes Middle School this year and is in his dad’s class. He’s lucky, parents say, because Carl is an exceptional teacher.

“I teach to the top five students and it’s amazing how everyone else gets on the train,” he says. He’s 44 and has taught that way for 21 years. “I see those sparks that wouldn’t have happened if I were teaching to mediocrity.”

There it is again - high expectations.

Carl wears polo shirts and loafers and laughs easily. He’s as relaxed as Bill is pensive.

Both awaken in their students that pleasing sense of learning and challenge them to stretch their brains. They don’t see unruly kids in their classrooms but untapped potential. They offer their students a chance to excel and most eagerly accept.

My daughter has never worked harder or more willingly than she has for Bill Proser. In 12 years, she’s had dozens of teachers, but only a handful are memorable. Those are the ones who pushed her farther than she’d go on her own.

What are the rest doing? Maybe it’s time we ask them.

, DataTimes