I’ve taught English at Memorial High School for the past twenty years, and my first task each fall semester is learning the names of my students. This year, that task was slightly easier than ever before—one of the teenagers in my first hour English 12 class is my son. This situation is not as strange as I had anticipated. He’s a smart, charismatic dude. Watching him work with his classmates and participate in the lessons has been a delight. But as I focus on his ability to write essays and read critically, I can’t help but consider the varied and unexpected ways he and I have learned from each other over the years. In no particular order…

I. For much of his childhood, my son loved sharks and collected everything associated with them. Because of him, the whole family knew the names of every shark species, what they ate, and just how massive extinct megalodons were. This made my son a prime candidate for one of the Chippewa Valley’s greatest kid-focused honors: displaying his collection at L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library. We submitted his name more than a year in advance, and when his turn arrived, he and I carted his shark figurines, models, books, and stuffed animals downtown, then arranged the beasts in the glass case. The pride on his face as we admired the completed display shone almost as bright as mine; I had dreamed of sharing my passions in that very case since I was a little kid, but I never had the chance.

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OF ALL THE THINGS I'VE TAUGHT MY SON, I SUSPECT THESIS STATEMENTS AND COMMA RULES WILL BE AMONG THE LEAST NOTABLE.

But working with him in the classroom affords me a valuable opportunity. Not many parents are allowed a glimpse of their children outside of their regular parent/child roles.

II. My teaching career allows me to be available for stay-at-home dad duties each summer, and when my son and daughter were young, I did my best to plan frequent outdoor activities for the three of us. In the early days, that meant parks and Fairfax pool. Later, we became avid frisbee golfers, frequenting Mt. Simon and the school courses around town.

One warm summer afternoon, I deemed their throwing arms ready for a spot I’d only heard about: Tower Ridge. I didn’t realize the course wove through the deep woods, and even before we teed off on hole #1, I regretted not bringing bug spray. But no worries! If we kept moving, the mosquitoes couldn’t get us. By hole #3, we understood the course’s difficulty far outpaced our abilities. By hole #5, we were hopelessly lost. I carried my daughter on my shoulders while my son served as scout. I tried reassuring them we were fine, but their fear was contagious.

Eventually we found a building on a road that led to another road that delivered us to our car. My children learned not to trust my activity planning skills, but at least they slept good that night.

III. Nearly every autumn since my kids could walk, our family has visited a different corn maze. We consider ourselves experts in the genre. Govin’s, just outside of Menomonie, used to have a slingshot for launching apples at a wooden target, and a bunch of goats gathered underneath to eat the apple remnants. My son discovered it was a lot more fun to shoot the apples directly at the goats; that visit stands out as the best time I’ve ever had on a farm.

IV. Every few Saturdays from 2013 to 2018, we visited the former Children’s Museum on Barstow Street in Eau Claire. Each family member had a favorite attraction: my daughter loved the pretend grocery store, my son couldn’t get enough of the television studio. Thanks to my latent plumbing interests, the clear plastic pipes on the back wall of the basement always drew my attention. The correct combination of opened valves would blast these little colored balls through a pipe overhead to the adjoining water-filled table. I did my best to teach my son the finer points of water pressure and not shove him (or other children) aside when they messed up my flow, but I wasn’t always successful.

V. Of all the things I’ve taught my son, I suspect thesis statements and comma rules will be among the least notable. But working with him in the classroom affords me a valuable opportunity. Not many parents are allowed a glimpse of their children outside of their regular parent/child roles. If you think about it, that’s what these final stages of childhood are all about. My son’s impending graduation has prompted me to conjure my memories of him, many of which are inextricably tied to Eau Claire. In each, he was a kid. But seeing him in the front row of my classroom paints a different picture. For the first time, I can see his future, and as far as I can tell, he’s going to be fine.