His Name Is Written

We were sitting around a small table outside a German pub in downtown Berlin. Since none of us spoke German very well, it came as no surprise that there was confusion about our order. As Mike Griffin and I tried to explain to the waitress, the other guy with us, Mike McKinnon, sat with a contented grin on his face. It is a grin that comes from an astute understanding of how the world works. I suspect Mike McKinnon recruited Griffin and I to take this trip to Germany because he knew this confusion would result and he knew it would be enlightening for us. As I reflect on my forty-year relationship with Mike McKinnon, I see how Mike brought his gifts as a teacher even to his friends. The best teachers put their students in learning situations even if the students don’t know it.

When I first came to Parker High School – back when the earth was just cooling – Mike McKinnon convinced me to help with some interdisciplinary lessons he was using in his social studies classes. (Did I mention that Mike help develop Integrated Social Studies (ISS) decades ago at Parker? He was practicing Small Learning Communities 20 years before it became the next new thing.) Soon, along with the other Mike, Mike Griffin, we were offering these programs to other educators across the region and, eventually, across several states. For years I thought I was helping Mike, but I realize that he was really helping me. Not just by making connections in the curriculum, but by helping me as an educator find the confidence to present my ideas to other teachers. He did what the best educators always do, he encouraged me to grow.

As Mike McKinnon moved into administration, he continued to offer me opportunities to try new things disguised as “favors to him”. (Please don’t misunderstand. I also know that Mike is famous for his absent mindedness. There were times when I did bail him out.) Experiments in summer programs, workshops in teaching, even an opportunity to write a section in a DPI curriculum guide. And while all these activities helped me learn things about my profession, it is hard to underestimate what they help me learn about myself. Mike McKinnon was a wonderful teacher.

I can’t end this tribute to Mike without mentioning a more personal moment. Many years ago, while I was recuperating from a horrific car crash, Mike came to my house to bring me a book. He knew I needed inspiration and he gave me a book filled with the personal letters and writings by important people in history. I read that book often over the next few months. One writer seemed to provide an appropriate summary for Mike’s work. In his summation of a long murder trial, the attorney Clarence Darrow, after appealing for mercy for his clients, affirmed his personal belief in mercy and forgiveness when he quoted Omar Khayyam:

“So I be written in the Book of Love

I do not care about that Book above,

Erase my name or write it as you will,

So I be written in the Book of Love”.

Mike would have been uncomfortable with the fiery emotion of Clarence Darrow, but he absolutely knows in which book his name is written. Rest in Peace, old friend. Rest in Peace.