Mr Dennett

A light went out

A month or two ago, I had brunch with Mr Dennett. It was 28 years since he’d been my high school history teacher, and I could’ve called him Bruce, but he remained, and will always remain “Mr Dennett” to me, because even after I left school, he never stopped teaching me, and I never stopped feeling, whenever I spoke to him, like I was sitting at his feet, soaking up wisdom.

We talked about life and history and politics. We traded stories and ideas, he waxed lyrical about history and philosophy and teaching, and I went away, as I always did, feeling so much better about life, and about myself, than I had beforehand. Mr Dennett was funny and honest and direct and always wanted to give me a kick up the backside for not believing in myself more. When talking with him, I felt like believing in myself was easier.

I am not sure, but I don’t think it’s usual to be maintaining a friendship with your high school teacher into your forties. And yet I’m sure that I’m far from the only one of Mr Dennett’s students who did, because he was the most remarkable teacher I’ve ever had.

You know those teachers in movies, who inspire their students, who expand their worldview, get them to consider possibilities they’d never considered before, make them smarter but also better human beings, and irrevocably change the course of their life for the better? You know, the ones who never actually exist in real life?

Mr Dennett was a movie teacher, but without the schmaltz and sentimentality. He taught like nobody else taught, and his students loved him, because he loved them.

His knowledge of history was encyclopaedic, but he wanted less to get us to memorise the facts than to teach us the proper way of thinking about them. He didn’t just ask us to learn what was in the books, he asked us to challenge it, to argue with it, and to challenge and argue with ourselves. He taught us to look deeper on every subject, to be critical thinkers and to care deeply, not just about the world around us, but the world within us. He taught us to appreciate our own minds and to embrace the awesome power they contained. He believed in us, and had the incredible knack of making us believe in ourselves. There are thousands of people out there whose lives are better because they were lucky enough to be taught by Mr Dennett, because he believed in them, cared about them.

And he did it all while making us laugh, never taking himself seriously, bringing endless humour and boundless humanity to everything. He played the role of a mischievous sprite, flashing a smile that was half Puck, half Sir Humphrey Appleby, so cheeky and witty that you could almost miss the fact that he was a serious and committed teacher and academic, a scholar of history and of the philosophy of education whose passion for his work never flagged and whose commitment to doing the best by every student he had was not for a second in question.

I’m rhapsodising, but believe me, if you had known Mr Dennett, you’d know I’m not really even doing him justice.

He loved running, and cricket, and rugby, and The Goon Show. He loved telling stories about his youth, about Grandpa Dennett, about episodes from his own life and the history of the world that illustrated the wild eccentricity of the human race in which he took so much delight. And he loved, more than anything, his wife Jane, a wonderful teacher in her own right. He was, all the time I knew him, electrically alive.

I had brunch with him, and I walked away thinking how great it was to catch up, and how much I was looking forward to our next meeting. In the past week I made a mental note to give him a call and see how he was, but I never got around to it.

And yesterday I found out I would never give him another call. The next meeting won’t ever happen.

This man, this wise, kind, funny, colossally intelligent man, had passed away, and he’d never make me think or make me laugh again.

I think of the legions of students past and present who must be feeling like I do right now, like one of our guiding lights has been snuffed out, like someone whose existence was prime evidence for the proposition that the world can produce wonders no longer existed.

I hope Mr Dennett knew how much we all loved him. I can’t stand the fact that I am writing all of this when it’s too late - I should’ve told him all of it when I had the chance. I can only hope he knew, from all our talks, how much he meant to me, how much he gave to me. I hope he knew that losing him would feel like losing my bearings on a rough sea.

If I told him he was a great man, that he illuminated the world and made everything bigger and brighter and that I could never repay him sufficiently for what he’d done for me, he’d have grinned that indelible grin and told me to get my hand off it. But I hope he knew that was true anyway.

Mr Dennett is gone. The world will never be quite as good as it was when he was in it. But the world will always be better than it would’ve been if he hadn’t. I will miss him for the rest of my life, and I will try every day to live the way that he taught me was the best way to live - deliberately, thoughtfully, with kindness and compassion and unquenchable zest. And with frequent and loud laughter.

I wish you were here, Mr Dennett.