Retiring Mercy High teacher gave his students faith in their potential

In the first minute of the last 45 minutes of the last day of his 41-year teaching career, Tom Schusterbauer hands out buttons.

As he tells this last class, in a poem he also distributes, last June he wished not to teach another class of freshman girls. "After 40 years of dealing with the drama and insanity and the wonderful aliveness of 14-year-olds," he wrote of himself, in third person, "he was ready to go, in a quieter and calmer way."

Instead he has this: a Facebook fan page, launched by a former student, with almost 400 "Schuste" fans paying homage to the imprint he's left on them. This freshman English class of 31 girls at Mercy High School, now staring at him with the rapt attention most teenagers would extend to, say, Taylor Swift making a surprise appearance at a school assembly.

In this world of teaching high school students -- first, boys who slammed their lockers at Notre Dame High School for 11 years, then for an all-female Mercy cast ("higher decibels, more giggling, less slamming," he says), he's having a moment. This 62-year-old man, standing before his last class in blue jeans and a T-shirt that says "Caulfield," accomplished something special.

He did this with laughter, tears and the ability to engage with young people by banter, argument and query. He did it by surprising them with wit and intellect and raw emotion. "He gave us himself," says Tracie Krawczyk, a Mercy alumna and now a biology teacher in Colorado, who changed travel plans to be here. "That's a lesson I think about almost every day, because it's so hard to do."

How do you get to be a great teacher? You could never stamp out or standardize the Schusterbauer teacher model, as quirky and idiosyncratic as any teacher has ever been.

In his Converse high-tops (he has 34 pairs), he is superficially wacky, a kibitzer who posts goofy photos of himself on his Facebook page. The laughter from Room S-9 filters through the walls, sparking envy in neighboring classrooms.

But his students know him to be as reverent as he is irreverent: "A good teacher? More like 'life-changing,' " says Elena Lamping, 15, who adores him.

Now these 31 girls -- an outsized class that ought to preclude the intimacy and connection teacher and class have created -- sit still and expectant, as they wait to be taught, one final time.

The buttons say: "Harm None."

As he begins, he recites a poem someone gave him years ago, a poem that the alumni in the room mouth out loud: It is called "No Easy Reach."

In 45 minutes, he packs in poetry, literature, movies. He shows film clips from "To Kill A Mockingbird," asking the students how the character Boo Radley, the town misfit, relates directly to the button they've been given. Hands go up.

"We have to fight prejudice in different ways because these things happen all the time," a girl named Colette says.

There's another clip, from "Conrack," showing a young Jon Voight, awaiting the boat that will take him from the Carolina sea island where his young charges will remain. "It hurts very badly to leave you," Conrack, the character, says, as the children stand silently, and Beethoven plays on the soundtrack.

More questions. More hands shoot up.

What does Robert Frost say about things golden? "That nothing golden can stay."

And what does Holden Caulfield realize, after daydreaming about putting children in a big glass case, to protect them? "That you can't stop life from happening," Elena says.

From Schusterbauer, they have learned to read below and through the lines, to understand literary symbols and motifs in a way that enriches their lives. They connect the dots, see where this is going.

"You know when you see the teacher in a movie like 'Dead Poets Society'? The great teacher? Well, that's Tom," says Krawczyk, the former student. "What makes him great? I had this class, freshman English, with him, and it wasn't just about learning to love books or read them. It was about trying to be a good person."

He plays a few more film clips, and then a last one, of his son Jason, now 40, and his daughter, Courtney, then 9, trying to feed a rabbit.

"There's no sound," he says. "But after you watch it, I'm going to ask you what Courtney is saying."

Courtney died three weeks later, standing on a sidewalk, ambushed by a beginning driver. She would be 40 today, June 11. This is his last lesson: Reach for the fruit that others won't because "you don't own life, life owns you." Because you have to take risks. Be noticed. Take a stand.

There are sniffles in S-9, as he passes out his poem, printed on three hot-pink paper sheets, titled "With Love (For my final freshman English class)": "So a 62-year-old man falls in love again, discovers at the very end of his career, something that sparkles and shines."

In a few minutes he will walk out of the classroom and into the rest of his life, a very different one. His students -- this class and the others -- will march onward.

"You taught us how important it is to express one's character every single moment," wrote Megan Anne Bolton to him.

Tom Schusterbauer taught them to strive, to reach when it's not easy, to appreciate the preciousness of life at every moment, because change is certain. He did that this year and every year, over four decades, until now, when the very last bell of his last and perhaps best class rings.

Laura Berman's column runs Tuesday and Thursday and online Sunday. Reach her at lberman@detnews.com">lberman@detnews.com.