Good teachers change lives: thank you, Michael O’Hern and others like you

The centerpieces at Michael O’Hern’s retirement dinner featured vintage choir photos.

Last Friday, I dropped by Wilshire Baptist where members of the Lake Highlands High School community were holding a farewell dinner for longtime choir director Michael O’ Hern.

I didn’t know much about O’Hern, other than what I’ve read in press releases and Carol Toler’s blog posts, but it was obvious, from observing the turnout, that he is significant to many students, parents and teachers.

I showed up because another choir instructor, Steve Lovell from Liberty Junior High, asked me to. O’Hern was Lovell’s mentor, Lovell told me, and that connection indebted me to O’Hern.

Let me explain: My daughter, in the seventh grade, was miserable.

Since kindergarten, she had been attending a small private school (where her grandmother taught). During the middle-school phase, she began to suffer socially and academically. Though she played sports, she never really found a creative or physical outlet for the emotional agony of adolescence. Things got so bad for her that during the middle of seventh grade, right after the Christmas holiday, we transferred her to Richardson ISD’s Liberty Junior High. She went from a school where 200 uniformed students comprised grades K-8 to a school of 650 7^th and 8^th graders.

She was scared. I was terrified. Could this possibly be the right move?

Immediately things started looking up. The daily interaction with a larger and more-diverse population seemed to ease, rather than increase, her anxiety. (It makes sense, right? If you are ostracized in a small group, there is nowhere to go.You are trapped.)

Mr. Lovell, noticing the new student, singled her out and asked her to sing—I still remember the way she glowed when she told me about it. “He said I had a good voice. He thinks I should join the choir,” she had beamed, brighter than I’d seen in years. She did join, and at the end of the year she won an award for “most improved.” When Lovell called me in for a conference, I assumed she’d done something bad. But he just wanted to let me know that she was a talented singer and that he wanted her to hone those skills. She went from being on the verge of tears each afternoon to being a happy, confident, smiling and laughing kid.

Freshman year, she joined the Berkner choir. Her solo at the Christmas concert left me punch drunk (I have a terrible voice and my husband’s is worse, so seeing our daughter standing on a stage singing in Italian like an angel was surreal). She just was selected for next year’s a capella choir. Lovell helps out with the Berkner choirs, as well as directing the Liberty choir.

I can say with zero doubt that her experience with the RISD choirs has opened doors to a more-positive future, one in which she can envision bigger, better possibilities.

We have Lovell to thank for that, and, so, there I was, at the party Friday, thanking Mr. O’Hern (as he looked at me like, “Who the heck are you”) along with a hundred other parents.

There was a common theme among those who love Mr. O’Hern—it wasn’t just about the music, though he was a great music director who brought home tons of accolades and awards for the school. It was, as it is with any truly good coach, about directing, nurturing and leading the whole person, not just the performer.

Here’s how Lovell puts it:

… what I really want to talk about today are not all the … awards and offices that Mr. O’Hern held while teaching in the Lake Highlands area, but about the things you may have never seen. He was always there for us, literally and figuratively. He never missed work and was always willing to listen or help us with issues at home, at school, or with accepting accountability for ourselves. The countless hours he spent helping kids with all-region tryouts, or a talent show, before and after-school rehearsals, or the musical, Limited Edition and Espree performances and shows, or with finding college music scholarships—he pushed us to be the not just the best singers, but the best people we could be. Mike was an amazing adult role model; you could always count on choir to be a safe place that was consistent and full of respect. And maybe the most astonishing of all, in a program that was so dominant, [O’Hern] had a way of making success not about him, but about his students.

The only thing I can add is this: in treating his profession with such reverence, Mr. O’Hern sent other leaders like himself out into the world. He might never know how many lives he has directly, or, by association, indirectly, impacted.

To him and all the teachers who understand the seriousness of their jobs, a deeply felt thank you.

For a magnified, slideshow view of photos, click on any image: