Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

This week one of my high school teachers passed away. Reminiscing about our relationship got me thinking about the nature of teaching. It’s a very nebulous and squirmy thing, teaching is.

Hard to pin down. Hard to define.

Hugo Rinaldi taught music at San Rafael High School, leading the orchestra. Where most students only have a particular teacher for a single class, for a semester or perhaps a school year, I was Hugo’s student for my whole four-year run at SRHS. He conducted the school orchestra, the youth orchestra, and the chamber orchestra, all of which I was a member. He encouraged me to switch from violin to viola. He gave me the opportunity to conduct orchestras, bands, operas, and musicals.

Being a music teacher, Hugo didn’t have “classes” in the usual sense. There were no syllabi, we had no tests. We had rehearsals. Our homework was to practice our parts. Our finals were the concerts we gave for our proud (but often wincing) parents. He didn’t instruct us on how to play our instruments; that was the realm of our private music teachers. Hugo taught us how to play in an orchestra.

Big whoop, right? Like I’ll use that in my daily life.

Here’s the thing: I do.

You see, Hugo didn’t teach me so much as he allowed me to learn. And what I learned was more than just how to play this symphony or that concerto. I learned more than music. Through his demands and expectations, I learned discipline, perseverance, teamwork, adaptability, and leadership. Through his encouragement, I learned the joy of a job well done, the anguish of failure, and the thrill of reaching further than you think you can. From his behavior, I learned about passion, joy, expression, and sensitivity. In short, from Hugo, I learned a lot about what it is to be human.

Thinking back on the teachers I’ve had, the ones who affected me the most taught more than just the subject at hand. Like Hugo, they taught me how to think, how to learn, how to dream, and how to achieve those dreams.

And it’s these subtle, unquantifiable lessons that have meant the most to me, that make me who I am today. Teaching is more than tests. It is imparting knowledge, in all its many forms, from one generation to the next.

Thanks, Hugo. Bravissimo.

k