Confessions of a Recovering Math Nerd, Now Obsessed With Letters

An overdue thank you to the high school English teacher who made writing feel like breathing

Dear Mr. O’Toole,

Surprise! I know you weren’t expecting me to write you back publicly, but well, that’s me. (I hope you’re okay with it.)

Thank you so much for your letter. As you know, I love getting mail. Especially mail from one of my all-time favorite high school teachers. Even though I already mailed you a handwritten thank you, some thank yous are too good to keep to yourself.

I’m pretty sure I’ve told you over the years how much of an impact you had on my writing. But maybe I haven’t. Either way, your letter arrived at exactly the right time, because with kids heading back to school, I’ve been thinking about the teacher who made me fall in love with writing. Or at least not hate it as much as I once did.

You see, before I took your class sophomore year, English wasn’t my favorite subject. Not even close. Math was it for me. I loved math. Like puzzles, I loved math for the one solution—'solving for X'—and the nice, neat answer waiting at the end.

English was not that. It was outlining and drafting, grammar and sentence structure, and, of course, thoughts and feelings, and mine were happy to remain bottled up.

Until you.

You made us see that writing could be fun, creative, enjoyable even. In your class we laughed. We forgot about grades and focused on the joy of thoughts and ideas. For the first time, I sat down to write essays without thinking it was just another homework assignment I wanted to hurry up and finish, but rather a creative outlet. And that was freeing.

I started to look at writing assignments and wonder: what did I have to say? I also learned it was okay to write how I spoke. (Like my letters!) You reminded me of Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society, a little less traditional but a whole lot more effective. I don’t remember discussing the mechanics of writing (though I’m sure we did), but I do remember learning in your class—through humor—to not take it all so seriously and to enjoy the process instead.

But still, I stupidly went off to college and majored in math.

During my third semester of calculus, feeling more lost than a decimal point, it dawned on me: the tide had changed. Math was no longer what I loved doing. Writing was. I soon began writing for The Daily Collegian. I had something to say and, better yet, the tools to say it.

Being a weekly columnist fueled me, week after week. The lessons you taught me—that writing was full of possibilities—made me look at that blank screen as simply a blank canvas waiting for the next spark of inspiration.

Which brings me back to your letter. Seeing your familiar handwriting and reading this next excerpt you’d written, reminded me of all this.

BTW, your note about writing thank yous for Taylor Swift sacked me right in! Well played. It was only when a friend of mine who is an unabashed Swiftie wised me up—“Check the date, Ed,” she said—that I realized you were pulling all our legs! Bravo!!

Exactly the sense of humor I remembered.

I debated writing this letter to you in my Substack since I’d just written to two elementary school teachers a few weeks ago, but when I thought about it, it seemed apropos. Those two elementary school teachers might have taught me how to put words on paper, but you taught me that I had something worth saying.

Then, of course, you gave me my marching orders, right there in that same letter:

Keep the letters a ’comin’, kid!

And I will. I am. Letters, it turns out, were the gateway drug to writing newspaper articles, opinion columns, and books. And now here I am, back at the source, writing more letters.

So, once again, thank you for presenting writing in a funny, caring, and real way, and for showing me that it was more than a school subject. It was breathing.

With love (and some of your old jokes still bouncing in my head),

P.S. Did you have your own “Mr. O’Toole” when you were a student? Do share!

SONG OF THE WEEK

Dear Teacher by Ned Quintana. (You can also listen to the song by clicking on the image.)