"The Van Leer Way"

By Julie D. Lillis -- He’s called “Pops” by some kids.  Others fondly recall “The Van Leer way” of imparting history and anthropology, and remember him as simply “captivating.”

“Whatever it is,” wrote Paige Harazin ’00 in a recent email, “you can feel the difference in Mr. Van Leer’s classroom.  In his presence, students seem to come alive with an energy so infectious that you can feel it vibrating all the way down the freshman hallway.  With Van Leer, you find yourself a bit more alert and a bit more engaged because you don’t know quite what’s coming next (not to mention you REALLY don’t want to be caught off guard or half-asleep).  With Van Leer, you can find groups of typically reserved students passionately debating Truman’s decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki (as he sits perched on his chair, arms folded, with a Cheshire cat-like grin on his face).”

He loves history and loves teaching unabashedly.  Though he claims not to be an intellectual, his knowledge of anthropology and history is both deep and wide—a gentle prompting is sure to unleash a long and thorough discussion of the attributes of Truman versus Roosevelt, say--and neatly matches his uncanny understanding of adolescents.

Perhaps that knowledge came naturally, and perhaps it was learned.  He points to the late Carl Buessow as a mentor and a role model.   Returning to his alma mater in 1969 as a teacher, John worked for Carl—then the head of what is now called the Middle School—initially teaching eighth-grade Geography while Walter Schneller was on sabbatical.  Carl married a riotous sense of humor with a firm hand on the wheel—both of which John appreciated immensely.  “Things were done Carl’s way, but for a young teacher, it was outstanding training.  And he was also a scientist, which was kind of interesting because as an administrator it was always very, very clear cut.”  It was an approach, John says, which has translated neatly into his work with teenagers.  “That may not be how the world operates, but when you’re dealing with adolescents if you’re very clear with them, and they understand exactly what the line is, they seem to respond to that.”
 
His short stint teaching under Carl came to a halt in March 1970 with the Vietnam War, and quickly John found himself working overseas; of 21 months of active duty, he spent “five months and five days” in Vietnam.  “I unloaded ships.  Da Nang and Chu Lai.  C rations, beer, soda, and ammunition.”
After the war, John returned to Hackley for a semester, filling in again for Walter Schneller—then on his honeymoon—and teaching two sections of American History, one section of eighth grade American History, and one section of Current Events. 

Though he loved history—his major at Middlebury—he soon heeded the call of another passion, the railroad, working for the Missouri Pacific Railroad of St. Louis in management.  Eventually stationed in Kansas, John learned that the lifestyle meant “you were married to the railroad and they let you live with a girlfriend.  Because management is non-union, the philosophy of my bosses was, you were supposed to be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”  After two years he and his wife, Anne, moved back to Tarrytown and back to Hackley.  Yet, he says, “Every time I see a train go by, I stop and I look at it.  I love it.”  Why?  “I really like the freight operation.  I am much more into freight.  I don’t know why, but I think I am impressed by the raw power and the technology.  But then also every boxcar you look at, or every car you look at, there’s a separate history to it—starting with its reporting marks.  It’s just fascinating.”  He still keeps up with what he calls “the industry,” reading such magazines as Trains and Railfan and Railroad.

Since his return to the Hilltop in 1976, John has taught two mainstays of the History Department:  American History and Anthropology.  The latter, a one-semester course required for freshmen, splits the semester neatly between cultural and physical anthropology.  “I think what I’m trying to do get them to do is to look at both sides,” John observes.  “The golden rule of anthropology is cultural relativism. You’re not supposed to judge.  And for ninth graders, it’s the beginning, I would say, of a long journey.”

Thirty years of teaching “Anthro” and American History—and occasionally another course, like the seminar on the Vietnam War one year--have made him a fountain of knowledge, and of course they play to his passions, especially American history.  “Oh, I love it,” he says with a grin.  “The stories are fascinating.  The people are fascinating.”

Like many history buffs, he reads deeply and then moves on.  “I used to really like the Revolutionary period the best,” he says, “but the more I’ve done—I’d say basically since I came back here [to Hackley]....I keep gravitating back to Roosevelt and Truman.” 
 
He finds that the avalanche of schoolwork impedes his ability to read for fun during the week, and so he saves his books and magazines for weekends and vacations.  While some of his students were relaxing on a recent vacation, for instance, John immersed himself in Doris Kearns Goodwin’s biography of Lincoln.  Non-fiction is his preference—with the notable exception of anything by John Grisham and John Le Carre, whose spy novels he “loves.”  Pity the poor mailman who delivers the Van Leer mail:  it is heavy with magazines!  In addition to the two publications about trains, John reads Smithsonian, National Geographic, Natural History, Discover, Archaeology, Newsweek, and KMT (a magazine of Egyptology)—as well as the New York Times and the Journal News every day.

His students reap the benefits of his reading and his complete devotion to them and to the material he teaches--he’ll bring in a relevant article or illustration to show and discuss with them—and so do his colleagues.  Years ago, John would send freshmen in his Anthropology class to ask biology teacher Kerry Clingen questions that pertained to both subjects.  As Kerry observes, “at a time when nobody [in education] was really integrating subjects, he was doing it.”  He was way ahead of the educational curve.

Outside the classroom, he logged many years as a dorm parent, a Class Advisor (the precursor to our Grade Deans), and Community Council Advisor.  Dr. Andrew Martorella ‘90, Assistant Attending Physician at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, remembers: “He dedicated countless hours to the Community Council as the faculty advisor and for four years we worked together organizing school dances and mini-marathons, morning announcements and pep rallies at football games where he made me wear the hornet costume more than once despite my objections!  Mr. Van Leer brought out the best in me after I was elected President of the Community Council my senior year.  When I initially stumbled through my first Community Council meeting as President, he was not at all discouraged and helped me ‘just to try to do better the next time around.’  He guided me every step of the way.  I will always feel indebted to him for allowing me to develop a sense of leadership and self-confidence that has stayed with me since I graduated from Hackley over 15 years ago.”

Just as he mentored students like Andrew, John has mentored new teachers both officially (as a Teacher Mentor) and unofficially.  “I learned a lot from him about the kinds of skills that ninth-graders need,” Kerry Clingen says.  “Hackley was my first teaching experience.  I did a lot of other things, but I hadn’t taught before.”  (Kerry has taught for over 20 years now, a master teacher herself, and has mentored other young teachers along the way.)

A one-year sabbatical in 1991-2 punctuated John’s thirty years at Hackley.   Can you guess how John spent much of that time?  Not far from campus is Philipsburg Manor, a 300-year-old working farm, part of Historic Hudson Valley, a tract of restoration projects set up years ago by the Rockefellers.  “I worked at Philipsburg primarily with the miller Peter Curtis and the farmer, Stephen Kozak,” John says.  “I was interested in the operation of the water-powered mill, but we rarely did much with it.  I did learn I did not want to muck out the cows’ stalls on cold mornings nor clean out the shed where the sheep spent the nights and winters!  I also learned how to split locust branches to make fence rails and boreholes in locust posts, which was no fun at all.  I gained a lot of respect for how hard it was to wrest a living from the land in the 18th century.”
That year enabled John to take a time machine to the 18th century—a dream come true for a history teacher.  It also allowed him to spend even more time with his four kids.  “Having the fall off gave me the opportunity to see my daughter Anneke play her soccer games,” he recalls.

John and his wife Anne, currently the Library Media Specialist and Division Head for Special Areas at Whitby School, reared their four kids on campus, moving to a home off-campus only when “the baby” left home for college.  It was an idyllic life in many ways.  “It seems like just yesterday we were going to the Lower School, to see this production or that production.  You can duck out between classes, go over, see a 15-minute presentation, you could see your kid play the trumpet or act in some play.  It was a lot of fun.  There aren’t many events in our kids’ school careers that we missed, collectively.” 

The kids—Devon, Anneke, Piet, and Edward—are now all grown up and on their own. Devon balances motherhood—her daughter is two—with Ph.D. studies in Paleontology; she lives in Oregon with her husband.  An RN, Anneke works in the thoracic step-down unit of NYU; “she is the third generation of the family to be a nurse,” John says.  An Associate Producer for ESPN, Piet works now in the international division “doing soccer exclusively,” says John.  A paralegal, Edward lives in D.C., his favorite city, where he also went to school.  They are all thriving, and all launched into adulthood.

Besides reading history, and visiting his kids and granddaughter, what does he do in his spare time?  He gardens, but he says not as successfully as he did at Hackley when he had a huge, sunny vegetable garden.  “The soil’s not as fertile where I am, and the other problem is I’m on top of a hill and it’s very, very rocky.  I have trees shading my garden and I refuse to take the trees down.  They’re beautiful and it would take 60 years to replace them.  So, unless God strikes them down with lightening.... it’s too bad, but they’re gorgeous.”   An excellent cook—ask him for his French Onion Soup recipe (from scratch, no less!)—he is probably the best barbequer on the faculty, and generously shares many of his grilling tips and recipes for marinades.

The hobbies are worth mentioning in part because they add color to the character, in part because he excels at all of them.  Whatever John does, he does well—and of course first and foremost that means teaching.  Not surprisingly, he’s the kind of teacher that kids point to as a pivotal influence in their lives.  He’s also the kind of teacher kids want to keep in touch with past the point of adolescence.  Paige wrote in an email, “as my good friend Christie said, it’s not often that you see an interesting piece in the New York Times years after you have graduated and send it to your high school teacher without a second thought, both because you’d love to hear his point of view, and because you know he’ll get a kick out of it and can’t wait to share another laugh.”

The magnetic pull of the Hilltop is a theme, perhaps, among our alumni-faculty—and John is the most senior among them.  He was really just a little boy when he matriculated here:  a fifth-grader, and not yet a history buff.  That passion wouldn’t hit for two more years--until his seventh grade American History course, and Dave Bridges, whom he calls “a great storyteller.”  Next followed Ancient Medieval History, taught by Tom Braine—whom John remembers as an “amazing” storyteller.   These dynamic teachers ignited in John a love of history, and one without an “off” switch.

“That’s the beauty of independent education,” says John.  “What’s fascinating about kids is that it’s not the material they usually respond to, it’s the personality of the teacher first.  That’s what seems to draw them in.”
It’s interesting that he should say that since his own students say much the same about him.  In her college essay, Christie Philbrick-Wheaton ’00 called him “my teacher, mentor, and father figure at school” and observed that “it is the people who stand behind us, ready to catch us if we fall that make our journey possible.  Mr. Van Leer has been there since the beginning of my journey.”

A narrative thread running through my conversations with John’s current and former students is that he is especially adept at reinforcing their self-esteem.  As Christie put it so adroitly, “He encouraged us to find our confidence.”

As for John, his view is simple: “It’s pretty nice to get paid for a job you enjoy doing.  Yeah, it is.  No question about it.”