Jeff Kelly Lowenstein: My Walking Talking Lifetime Achievement Award

Jeff Kelly Lowenstein. Google the name. Ten pages worth of Jeff Kelly Lowenstein later, Google’s still rolling out his name. Impressive.

Let’s see. Award winning reporter for the Chicago Reporter; currently Database and Investigative Editor for the Chicago Tribune’s Spanish language newspaper Hoy (and is becoming fluent in Spanish while he’s at it); the 2007 Racial Justice Fellow at the Institute of Justice and Journalism at USC’s Annnenberg School of Communication; one of a handful of journalists from around the world to be selected in the Climate Change Media Partnership’s first Fellowship Program to send journalists to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban (COP17) in November 2011; contributor to the Huffington Post; awarded a Dennis Hunt Fellowship in 2011; currently president of the Dart Society…I could go on. Run that Google search and see for yourself.

I’ve known him since he was nine years old. And I'm mighty proud of him.

“I want Mr. Tamburello for my fourth grade teacher,” he remembers telling his mom in 1974. Alice Lowenstein was on the board of the Parent Teacher Organization. Jeff was placed in 4T. He was one of the bright spots in a really interesting bunch of kids in my 1974-75 class at the John Pierce School in Brookline, MA.

Jeff (R) interviewing a classmate on the first day of school in 1974

There must be a gene that creates the ability to connect the dots that link human relationships. Jeff is a natural. He made friends with every kid in the class. His style was subtle and steady. Kids respected him, an act that mirrored what they experienced from him. His voice is deeper now but his style hasn’t changed a jot.

He’d stop by to visit me after school from grade 5 through his years at Brookline High School, then during vacations when he returned to the east coast from Stanford (graduated Summa Cum Laude). When Jeff’s mom and dad were involved in a terrible automobile accident after he graduated, his mother nearly died. Fate drew him back to Brookline.  Jeff and his brothers Jon and Michael shared home care for their mother’s arduous recovery and rehabilitation. It was a long road. Jeff needed some structure and a sense of familiar territory to hold his days and nights together. He walked over to the Pierce School.

“We are family,” was principal Alvin Fortune’s motto. A big man with a bigger heart, he offered Jeff a job, knowing that Jeff was not only a caretaker for his mother, but needed some TLC himself. Our teaching community embraced him.

After a stint of running our recess program and the less exciting task of shelving books for our two motherly librarians who fed him snacks every day, Jeff asked if he could sit in on my classes, maybe help teach for a couple of hours a day. The smartest thing I ever did was to say yes. The next two years were the most exciting of my 34 year career.

That summa cum laude from Stanford was not just an impressive certificate to hang on the wall. Jeff authored terrific American History lessons, engineered activities that involved every level of student. Kids loved his style. They knew he was present, a huge gift, and that his desire to teach was balanced by his desire to know who they were and what they needed to succeed. He learned to manage a class of ten year olds. Watching him teach was fun.

Jeff added a program to my series of “Life Talks,” which he called “The You Can Do Anything Program” in which he invited artists, musicians, writers – all friends of his – to talk about the paths that led them to their callings.

Talking with him after class about strategies for content delivery, class management, which kids looked involved and which ones needed help, where the lesson would lead tomorrow… those sessions were a gift. They gave me insight into the depth of experience I hadn’t realized I’d absorbed in my first 18 years of teaching. And I learned a lot by watching Jeff work a room with an inclusive style that made every kid feel like he or she was in the game.

Jeff was an astute observer. I asked him to write anecdotal comments about each student and used them when Jeff sat in with me when we met with parents for conferences about their child twice a year.  Jeff owns a memory that rivals a purse seine trawler for its capacity to collect (and retain) data. When he spoke about their kids, he included specific examples for everything he wrote.

Twenty-four looks pretty old when you’re nine. My students would examine photos pinned to my bulletin board of Jeff as a fourth grader in 4T, look at him as a grown man, then try to figure out how ancient I must be to have been his teacher in the olden days. It was a gas.

Over the past forty years I’ve known Jeff as a student, mentor, fellow teacher, and, for the past twenty-five years or so, as a friend. I’ve witnessed him embrace challenges through his first career as a middle school teacher and through his evolutions as a reporter. He brings an incandescent energy to the cause of social justice that inspires his colleagues. Honest to goodness, I’ve seen him operate with this vision since he was nine years old.

I call Jeff Kelly Lowenstein my “Walking Talking Lifetime Achievement Award.”

On May 17, I’m heading to New York City to the second annual fund raiser/auction for the Dart Society, an organization of journalists that works to tell stories about trauma and violence with sensitivity and compassion, and that also works to help journalists deal with the impact of doing that work. Jeff Kelly Lowenstein is president of the organization.  A perfect match.

Jeff and pt through the years

1974 Jeff learning about Japanese culture with classmates in 4T

1989 Goofing around  as The Dynamic Duo during Pierce School's annual  "Dress Up Day" ; 2001 recording commentaries for NPR affiliate WFCR-FM in Amherst, MA

B/W classroom photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Comments

[Myke Farricker]

Great article, Paul.

[Ann Baker]

A teacher who remembers ...........a rare thing in this world, especially when it is the good that is remembered.
Very nice work,pt.

[Susan Sullivan]

great story, Paul...

[Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.]

Ann,
I was lucky to be surrounded by gifted, committed teachers and support staff during my career at the Pierce School. We always remembered the good stuff.

It wasn't unusual for a former student to show up in one of our classes to say hello. I remember when Estelle C. (in her early 30s) showed up in uniform at 8:00 AM one morning after working her night shift as an EMT. She riveted the class telling them what her job was like.

You could have heard a pin drop when one of my kids asked if she'd ever seen someone die. Without missing a beat, she told them that dealing with death was part of her job, that yes she's seen it. Estelle told them enough to answer the question and had a sense of just how much information was enough to satisfy their curiosity. That was a wonderful, spontaneous morning for me and my whole class.

Over the years, it got really good when former students came back as parents and their kids were in our classes. How cool is that!

[Bambi Good]

Paul Tamburello has written many wonderful pieces about adventures in New Orleans, Chile, and other spots, theater and movie reviews,and more, but I think this is the piece that has touched me the most and I hope it will reach a spot in you as well.

[mary]

nice one, Paul; an enjoyable read!

[Cathleen Cavanaugh]

Love, love, love this story! It is your best. Congratulations.

One of my boys just won a photo award, and we were all in NYC for the event. Jonathan's photography teacher saw his talent, encouraged him, and submitted the award winning photo to the competition. I wrote the photo teacher to let him know what an inspiration he was, and cc'd the Principal, V.Principal, School Superintendent, Mayor and Governor. Teachers are great, and they change lives every day.

[Paul A. Tamburello, Jr. aka pt at large]

Cathleen,
Thanks for that enthusiastic response! As a teacher, I valued feedback of every kind, from every source: parents, kids, administrators, peers, student teachers, former students. I would have been driven to do the kind of all out teaching that I did during my career whether I got it or not but getting it was always a good reality check. Your note to Jonathan's teacher was one of those letters that fuel a teacher's belief that he/she is making a difference.

Coincidentally, the tag line on the web page i created while I was teaching was

"Paul Tamburello's Fourth Grade...
Shaping the Future Since 1970"

I think it's terrific that we're continuing the story of your boys' progress since they were in third grade!
Best regards,
Paul