What my junior high science teacher taught me about life – and what it all means for online storytelling.

By Ted Page, Captains of Industry

Picture a gangly teenage boy sitting in the back row of his science class, listening to his teacher, Mr. Powell.  At the time, I was compelled by my mother to wear hand-me-down bellbottom jeans, and they were too short, so I looked vaguely like someone from the Starship Enterprise. I was not particularly good at science, but I revered Mr. Powell and hung on every word he said. He talked about working two jobs. At night he was a meat cutter. By day, he taught at the Diamond Middle School in Lexington. He told us about his life, how exhausted he often was, and how too many people had forgotten the importance of working hard and giving it all they had.
Even with two jobs, he didn’t make much money. He was half-Italian, and spoke with his hands, jumping to new and fascinating topics like a maestro conducting an orchestra. No matter what the subject matter was (i.e. the chemical properties of hydrogen), he always seemed to come back to the underlying currents of his life, his family, the things that drove him to live right, to do the honorable thing, to stand up for his beliefs, to keep working 19 hours a day because it was necessary. And if we just learned that, we’d be ok in life. If we just learned to be good people, everything else would fall into place, just as molecules bonded to form compounds, or living, breathing matter.

I took his lessons to heart and have lived by them ever since.  When we tell stories on the web, or when we do anything in the world of communications, it’s really important to remember that the story we tell matters a great deal. But what also matters is the dignity, honesty, hard work and integrity we bring to that process. These things shine through in every story we tell.

To Mr. Powell, wherever you are today, thank you.