A teacher and lover of English, Barry Gilmore was an artistic powerhouse known for mapping out complex works of literature on his dry erase board or picking up his acoustic guitar and singing about Hamlet. He was beloved for his quirky sense of humor and unorthodox way of looking at the world. He also made one exam during my senior year of high school an absolute living hell, and I still love him for it.
All of us loved Mr. Gilmore’s out-of-left-field demonstrations. One afternoon, he announced to our senior AP English class, “Okay, everyone, leave your things at your desks. We’re taking a field trip!” Intrigued, we followed Mr. Gilmore out of the classroom to the cinderblock-walled stairwell across from the lockers. Ushering us onto the cramped landing at the top of the stairs, Mr. Gilmore raised his hand in a request for silence. Fascinated, we watched as he skipped gently down the stairs reciting, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day…” Standing now ten steps below us, Mr. Gilmore beamed up at his awestruck students. “That’s right! Did you know you walk down stairs in iambic pentameter?! As your weight shifts between feet, you walk in meter, and this stairwell has ten steps, so it’s perfect for Shakespeare. Someone else come down and give it a try.”
Of course, though he always incited laughter with his humor and illustrations, Mr. Gilmore returned every paper with a festive labyrinth of pen marks. I maintained an okay grade in his English class, but he constantly pushed me to hone my writing. More vivid metaphors, wider variety of sentence structures, distincter descriptors— Mr. Gilmore wanted to elevate our writing beyond what we expected of ourselves. He also paid me the highest compliment I think I’ve ever received: “I can recognize your voice when you write. Keep chasing that. Keep building on that.” He expected all of us to enter writing competitions, and though my GPA wasn’t high enough to be inducted into our school’s writing honors society, Mr. Gilmore presented me and a few other competitive writers with special honors at the end of the year. He didn’t want us to lose heart; he wanted us to keep writing.
Of course, none of these things made Mr. Gilmore my toughest teacher. As an English teacher, he was inspiring and uplifting and all that good stuff, but his toughness came from another class: International Studies.
A course on world cultures, economies, and governments, International Studies encouraged students to think about global issues, and the class always engaged in a lively interactive final exam: a model United Nations. As Mr. Gilmore handed out the assignments for our countries, he stopped at my desk, “Tom, you’re Sudan.” My senior year of high school (2004-2005) coincided with the height of the Darfur genocide, and Sudan dominated every news cycle. Mr. Gilmore had given me the most difficult country possible. Not only did I have to research the hell out of the Darfur genocide; I had to represent and defend the Sudanese government amid interrogations from my peers.
Believe it or not, things got worse.
On the day of our final exam, as Boutros Boutros-Gilmore called the model UN to order, he immediately brought a resolution to the floor: “I move that the delegate from Sudan must speak entirely in rhyming couplets. All in favor, please indicate with the raised hand. The resolution passes.” Oh shit. I hastily scribbled down every word I could think of which rhymed with “genocide,” but Mr. Gilmore wasn’t done with me. Roughly half an hour into the debate, Mr. Gilmore interjected, “I move that the delegate from Sudan must speak entirely in limericks. All in favor, please indicate with the raised hand. Resolution passes.” Shit shit shit. Um…
Whatever this body endorses,
we’re open to any discourses.
With the blood in Darfur
and religions at war,
yeah sure, send us peacekeeping forces.
I managed to make do for a while until one of my peers decided to get in on the fun. “Ooo,” Katie exclaimed, “Delegate from Ireland moves to… um… make Tom talk funny!” Ever helpful, Mr. Gilmore offered a suggestion, “Perhaps the delegate from Sudan should have to speak in villanelles?” A fixed-verse, nineteen-line poem consisting of five tercets and a quatrain utilizing the form A1 b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 A2, villanelles are a pain in the ass to write, and there’s a reason only one of them actually got famous. Obviously, the resolution passed, and smoked billowed from my mechanical pencil as I reformatted my arguments yet again.
As my peers left from this last exam of the school year, I sat at my desk too mentally depleted to get up just yet. Every piece of paper I had with me (even my name placard indicating “Delegate from Sudan”) was coated in couplets and haikus and sestinas. Mr. Gilmore grinned as I dramatically crumpled my notes and shoved them straight to the bottom of my un-monogrammed navy blue L.L. Bean backpack. “You know why I did it, right?” he asked as I glared across the desk, “I did it because I knew you could. All you needed was the push.”
A great teacher can make us feel accepted and safe and valued,
but great teachers also shouldn’t make us feel comfortable.
They should push us,
because the more they push us,
the more we discover our own potential.
There’s no doubt in my mind:
I write today because Mr. Gilmore encouraged me. He praised the things I did well, but he was also willing to give me the extra uncomfortable push. He was my toughest teacher for that reason, but he was also easily one of my favorites.
Barry Gilmore, you are deeply missed.
Thank you for all you did for so many.
Thank you for always giving us that push.