Perry Richman Personality

Chris Gregory

Rough Draft Essay #1

Mr. Perry Weissman may be the greatest teacher that I have ever had. He doesn’t teach his students about English like he probably should have, but instead about life. He was 71 years old and had been teaching since the very beginning of my old high school; from the very first class, he showed his wild personality and kindred spirit, and everyone could tell it has lasted all 40 years of teaching. He is a giant health freak and always ate organic food (which probably explains why he has been teaching for so long), no matter what he would always offer some of his healthy food just because he didn’t want anyone to eat junk food. Mr. Weissman changed my life in one day by teaching about life, death, and purpose.

If someone went to Smoky Hill High School there was very little chance that he or she didn’t know who Mr.

Weissman was; he was and still is one of the most infamous teachers for his hard work, even though it was actually easy, since he only assigned two and a half pages to three pages as homework once a week with no required essay prompt. When I walked into his class, I had already heard many complaints about him and I was very nervous about the coming school year. I walked in to see an old, wrinkly man and I thought to myself, “Oh God, this is going to be a terrible year.” Around the dim, windowless room there were hundreds of posters with quotes and I wondered how difficult this class was going to be. I sat in the back and behind my seat I see piles of boxes labelled by year, I found out later all of those boxes had actually been his collection of essays from the

students.
I remember thinking how it would be a terrible year to this day, because of a quote he said from Mother Teresa shortly after class started, “If you judge people, you have no time to love them,” and how he knew that all of us had probably walked in and judged him and the other students. He showed a clip from a movie that talked about writing from the heart, and by doing this all of the class could hopefully get over problems in our lives (and pass his class). He explained the meaning of Namaste, I see the light within you and I honour it. He then explained how fear was like a very deep pothole, and there are two choices: going around the pothole every day, getting over fear; or hitting it straight on every day, never being able to get over it. He said that the only way to get around that pothole was to trust, he said, “If you cannot trust, you will rust.” After doing this, he then explained that with life there must also be death.
Mr.

Weissman spoke of one of his favourite students and the tragedy that happened to him. Ian James Wallace was a student of Weissman, and they were always spending time during school together building Ian’s college essay. The last time that Mr. Weissman saw Ian was in the hall as they were leaving for winter break, and something had come over them which was when they embraced one last time, and after they had walked away they said they loved each other; a week later Ms. Wallace called saying that Ian had died in a car accident. Ian had a saying, “Live life, Love life” and he always wanted to change the world; Mr Weissman and Ms. Wallace have since created the Ian James Wallace Scholarship Fund, which honors students who best embody Ian. Every year, a committee decides winners based off of an essay, which can be accompanied by a project, and the winners are awarded a $1,500

scholarship.
Mr. Perry Weissman changed my life tremendously in that first day. That one class period taught me more about life than I had ever known before and has led me to learn much more about myself that I had ever known. He taught everyone in that class to confront our fears, and to live life and love life. He taught us not to regret our choice or judge others. I might have walked into that class thinking, “Oh God this is going to be terrible,” but I left thinking, “Oh God this is going to be a great year.”