In my last two columns I wrote about neighborhood schools and the rich memories of those who were lucky enough to attend one. People had great stories about our schools and how they made their neighborhoods seem special. They also offered stories about teachers, and one in particular kept coming up: Joe Leo. Joe started teaching in Fulton in 1967, leading fifth and sixth graders at Phillips Street School. To fully understand Joe’s unique style of teaching, I talked with a few of his former students and co-teachers.
John Mercer, who was a student teacher under Joe, told me what it was like to be in his classroom. “Joe taught the whole student, not just curriculum. He incorporated art, music, cooking and sports into lessons…and character development was a daily component of his classroom. [There were activities like] taking pride in how you looked and how to shake someone's hand and look them in the eye with confidence. It was amazing to watch, and you could see how much his students loved and respected him.”
John introduced me to several of those students, including Todd Terpening, who became a Fulton teacher as well. “Mr. Leo’s classroom wasn't traditional, with rows of desks and chairs,” Todd explained, “but rather a bunch of tables where teams of students sat, and his teaching style matched his unique classroom. He taught us many life lessons: the school store, which was run by students; checkbooks and banking systems; and Thursday dress up days. Boys had to wear a tie and if they didn't have one, Mr. Leo had many that he allowed us to borrow. He also exposed us to different types of music through what he called Album of the Week. On a certain day he would play a record of a popular singer or band.”
Because pop music has been a real passion in my life, I wanted to know more about how Joe incorporated it into his classroom. Another of his students, Ann Beaupre Clark, shared her distinct memories of the music project. “We would sit in a group in the back corner of the classroom and Mr. Leo would tell us about the artists and play one of their songs. Then, as a group, we would discuss the song. We were allowed to share our thoughts about it, what the lyrics meant to us, along with what the artist was trying to relay. To this day, when I hear those songs, it brings me back to Mr. Leo’s class. He made a positive impact on me and many others in our tiny fifth grade classroom.”
Hearing Ann’s and Todd’s memories made me wish I could have had Joe Leo as my teacher. I was curious why he chose the music activity for his classes, and after tracking him down in Utica, where he now lives, I asked him. “The idea of using music came about almost by mistake,” Joe explained. “I started teaching when I was 22, only a little older than the kids, and I was into music myself. One year, I had a class that really wasn’t very enthusiastic, so I thought that I would try something different. I started with singers and groups who were popular back then: America, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder.
“The kids would select one of the songs they liked and then illustrate it on colored paper. They had to write one sentence about what they were doing and then draw something. There was a song on an album by America called ‘Another Try.’ It had lyrics like:
Hey, Daddy just lost his pay
What did he do it for
It never made it through our door
He drank the whole week away
and what can a family say
“That song was about a father who blew away his money and one of my students made a beautiful picture. Then, he didn’t just write one sentence, but a whole paragraph and it was about his family. It really got me thinking about what those songs were doing, so we started talking about them.”
Once Joe saw the value of playing songs for his class, he added more, like Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On.” “That song was about the turbulent time in our country during the Vietnam War,” Joe said. “There was a lot going on and I had the students find vocabulary words based on that song.” Joe also used Stevie Wonder’s “Living For the City.” “We talked about ghettos and riots and poverty; a lot of the kids ended up doing research about those things. It got to the point where Album of the Week was all students wanted to do and I had to make sure that they completed their other work, too.”
Joe left Fulton in 1987 to begin teaching at an inner-city school in Utica. But the impact he had on his students remains. Another lucky kid in a Mr. Leo classroom was Scott Bolster, who remembered this:
“My parents were older when I was born and most of my friends’ parents were a lot younger than mine and that made me feel different. Mr. Leo was a male role model for me and I learned a lot from him. The fact that he used music I was listening to as a kid really made me enjoy his class and I tried my best to make him proud of me.”
One singer that Scott remembered Joe using was Jim Croce and his song “Time in a Bottle,” with lyrics like:
If I could make days last forever
If words could make wishes come true
I'd save every day like a treasure and then
I would spend them with you…
Scott was so moved by Croce’s music that he drew a portrait of him while in Joe’s class. “I wasn’t anyone who really excelled in drawing, but it was somehow a way to feel what Croce was saying in his songs. No matter how important those lyrics were to me as a sixth grader, they’re even more important now. In my truck are three Jim Croce CDs and I listen to them driving to and from work. I remember the way Mr. Leo worked his magic to get us to be the best learners that he could and I reflect on how those things he did through music changed who I was. They continue to change me today.”
Is there a teacher from your past whose influence has stayed with you? If there is, consider yourself lucky. And, should you get a chance, let that teacher know.
A 1986 school photo of Joe Leo’s classroom. Back row, far left: John Mercer, who student taught under Leo. Next to John is Joe Leo. Back row, third child from the left: Todd Terpening.