In 1973, I was one of his students.
Mr. Zager then taught English at Culver City Junior High.
My Profile
I was a 13-year-old in his English class. I was a punk, trying to raise hell against the system and against all junior high teachers in the early 1970s.
Mr. Zager was a very different teacher. He was not a part of the conservative old guard teachers in those days. He was youthful with long brown curly hair.
He Even Looked Like Us
He looked more like an older student. He even dressed like the students, jeans, tee-shirt and sneakers.
Zager, as we called him back then, really tried to know us as kids, inside and outside.
There was always a special warmth in his classes, warmth that 12- and 13-year-olds never found elsewhere on campus or even at home.
Useless Volume
I remember one time when he picked up an English textbook that was part of the curriculum. “This book is useless,” he said. The whole class cheered. We closed the covers and threw all of our textbooks onto the shelves.
Howard Zager taught us things that mattered most in our teen lives.
Also, how to look for an assured path in a teen’s confused life.
How He Cares
Zager wanted us to know and to understand what kind of world surrounded our young lives. He taught us to go deep within ourselves, to unlock negative forces.
Something that no textbook can ever do for a young person — only someone like Howard Zager, who really cared for his students.
Going on Four Decades
Starting in 1970, Howard Zager showed Culver City students his ability to inspire them to go beyond what they thought they were capable of doing.
He made it possible for his students to attain goals they had not thought they could reach.
Howard Zager still is being creative with his students at Culver City High School. His philosophy always has been love of wisdom, for his past, present and future students.
Gaining Insight
Mr. Zager currently enriches his students in a passionate way by teaching a course called, “How to Add Heart and Soul to Your Writing.”
In these sessions, his students pour out their emotions on paper, but at the same time they discover something profound and inspirational about themselves.
Sanctity of the Classroom
During lunchtime, under Mr. Zager’s leadership, he opens his classroom to 50 students for A.A. meetings.
At last, we come to the end of this essay. There is this message from a former student to present and future students:
“Even if you happen to go astray down a road with wasted and confused years, your path of enlightenment always will be in front of you, waiting just for you. As Mr. Zager always has said, ‘Just think.’”
