The Best Teacher I Ever Had

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 Like most teenagers, I was rife with contradiction. I had been identified as “gifted” early on, but by the time I’d reached high school, I bore little resemblance to what anyone could reasonably call a “student.” I didn’t do homework; I’d deemed it redundant. I didn’t take notes in class, which kind of made sense, in that I’d relieved myself of the burden of owning a loose leaf. I made absolutely no pretense at showing any interest in the monotonous and authoritarian work I simply refused to do.

John Henry Browne somehow saw through my (not insignificant) pubescent bravado and met me on a level no other teacher ever had. Exactly what he saw, and how he saw it, I’m still trying to decipher.

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Applying to the High School of Art & Design was in itself, an act of defiance. I’d been zoned to attend Benjamin Cardozo in Bayside Queens, and six weeks into my freshman year, I’d identified their academic curriculum as a sinkhole from which my soul might never recover. I needed to escape intractable reality; the bland sameness that surely awaited had I languished there. Art–specifically, my ability to draw–was my golden ticket. In January of 1982, I (along with several thousand other kids from around New York City) took the entrance exam for A&D; 400 of us were accepted. From the Bronx to Brooklyn, the UES and the LES, black, white, brown, rich and poor,  A&D was a portal for the motliest of teenage miscreants into a realm of infinite possibility.

John understood that sometimes, the theatricality of a moment is what stays with you

Attending the High School of Art and Design in the early 1980s was like being caught in a mash-up of Fame and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. New York City was still seedy and dangerous; glorious in all of its unsanitary splendor. Hip-hop was in its infancy, punk hadn’t devolved into goth, and every subway train screamed with the kind of art that is always born of poverty: the art of rebellion, the desperate need to be heard. A&D was a sanctuary: a school where–for the most part–kids could set their considerable differences aside, and bond over art: our salvation, our avenue of expression, our rebel yell of graphite and watercolor and acrylics and spray paint.

John was ten years younger than I am now when I first entered his classroom, where he taught English. His imposing stature–he stood six feet six inches tall–proved an ideal manner of gently intimidating a roomful of rapscallions. A shaggy salt and pepper beard obscured the lower half of his face while piercing blue eyes peered over black wire-rim glasses. I didn’t know it then, but Mr. Brown would irrevocably change my life. John didn’t just teach English; he taught me how to think critically before I knew those two words could be juxtaposed.

I had Mr. Browne as a sophomore. Like all of my teachers, he was frustrated at my utter contempt for anything even remotely resembling schoolwork. The final exam that year consisted of 60 short answers and an essay worth 40 points. I scored a 98; I’d answered all of the short answers correctly and Mr. Browne had taken two points off of my essay, sans explanation. We went over the test in class, as was route. This would have been entirely unworthy of note, had Mr. Browne not chosen to wax eloquently about my essay to the class. He spent a full minute explaining my choices in composition and syntax, while I sat there fuming, growing indignant.

“Mr. Browne, ” I said, raising my hand “if my essay was so good, why didn’t I get 100%?” Dismissively, he replied, “in my class, no one gets 100%.”

“It’s a BLACK thing, isn’t it?” I said, getting out of my chair. “It’s because I’m black!” By this point I was parading around his classroom, giving a performance worthy of Eddie Murphy. “Is this America?” I asked. “Can a black man get 100% in America?”

Unfazed, he rolled his eyes far enough back in his head to examine the contents of his breakfast. “Yes, ” he said without hesitation, “it’s because you’re black. Now could you please sit your black ass down, and stop disrupting my class?”

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John Browne was the furthest thing from racist. A native New Yorker born in the Bronx to Irish Catholic parents, he understood that sometimes, the theatricality of a moment is what stays with you. This he learned as a child, who found solace from an alcoholic father in the works of Shakespeare. It was a combination of these factors which granted him such immense compassion for his students. John saw from personal experience the extenuating circumstances that might impact a child’s academic performance and found ways to challenge and inspire even the most difficult kids. “You want to be what you can be for [students] at that moment, within the boundaries and limits of your role. Above all,” he said  “you want to be a transparent human being whose humanity they recognize and respect, but that’s something you earn by what you do. You have to keep reminding yourself to see the humanity of the people around you as things are happening.”

You have to keep reminding yourself to see the humanity of the people around you as things are happening.”

Mr. Browne had earned my respect. What I did not know (and could not have known) was he’d almost quit teaching at A&D that year. As a student, you have no way of (or business) knowing that your teachers are experiencing financial difficulties. He took on night work at Laguardia community college to make enough money to keep his day job, teaching ungrateful little shits like me.

John somehow managed to keep me on the honor roll for my entire high school career, as my GPA slid from a robust 94 to a pathetic 68. John knew how much I loved learning, despite my disdain for school and found ways to keep me engaged. By my senior year, we’d become fast friends, so I was surprised when he, as the Assistant Principal in charge of English called me into his office.

“The English department had a meeting about you. We see you’ve opted to take a journalism course” he said, “and frankly, we think it’s a get-over class for a student of your caliber. We’d like to put you in AP English, but I’m going to tell you right now: it’s going to be a lot of work. There’ll be homework every night, a book report due every week, and a book to read once a month.”

I slumped into his chair; a chair I’d sat in many times over the years when seeking his guidance. “John “I said “I thought we were friends. What are you trying to do to me? To our friendship? I’m 17 years old. Do you know what that means? This is my last year to have fun. After this, I either have to go to college or get a real job. I know you mean well, but it’s not your fault that I’m lazy and hormonal and there is an all-girl Catholic school around the corner. You put me in that class, and I’m telling you right now: I’m not going to do the work. You’re going to be mad at me for not doing it, I’m going to be mad at you for putting me there in the first place, and it’s going to ruin our friendship. Can’t you just give me my 65 and let me be?”

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I graduated from the High School of Art & Design (by the skin of my teeth) in June of 1985, with honors in English. Everything I am as a writer, and much of who I am as a man, I owe to John Henry Browne.

John taught in New York City public schools for 32 years. He would joke that the number of students who passed through his classroom would fill Yankee Stadium. On February 5, 2017, John Browne lost a brief battle with aggressive lymphoma. He is survived by his daughters, Alison Browne Beckman and Gillian Browne; their mother, Lucille Browne; sons-in-law Craig Beckman and Brian Colavito; granddaughter Lilah Rose and Kaela Brynn; and his partner, Jonna Semeiks. He earned many honors over his academic career, none so much as the adoration of the army of students like myself, who loved and learned from him. John taught myriads of students (and teachers) that actually caring was a revolutionary act; an act of defiance.

John Browne wasn’t just my teacher, he was my champion. I’m certain that wherever John is in the afterlife, he’s hurling Shakespearian insults with raucous laughter. As his students both in life and death, may we honor his memory with compassionate obstreperousness.

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Photo credit: From the author’s personal collection