One of the editors who helped me with The Honey Locust Tree wrote this about an early draft of the manuscript:
“The strongest approach to revision would be to make this about your quest to find light in everyone, with the school as the propelling factor for your involvement in prison ministry. This means ONLY mentioning the school when it can illuminate a situation in one of the prisons.”
In other words, she added, cut out most of the school material. Everybody has gone to school. Few have gone to prison.
This was extremely hard. I spent most of my waking hours at the school. I believed in its mission, which was to look for the inner light, or divine spark, in its students. I was fond of my colleagues and wanted to honor their work. One of the colleagues whom I most wanted to honor was LouAnn Hanian. I regret that I couldn’t give LouAnn a larger role in the memoir, but the editor was right.
LouAnn taught middle school English and history. She was in her sixties, had short brown hair speckled with gray, and wore lace-up leather shoes with skid-proof soles. She had children, and grandchildren, and lived with her husband in East Providence.
Her classroom was on the second floor, quite far from the cafeteria and the middle school office, and she went up and down the stairs dozens of times a day. I never saw her tired or out of breath.
LouAnn had beautiful handwriting. When she put a note in my mailbox, I marveled at her Palmer Method, with its gorgeous swirls and pleasing loops. The capital Fs and Gs were exquisite.
LouAnn possessed a prized skill: She could yell at her students with affection. This might not sound like a prized skill, but if you were a middle school teacher, it was the ultimate tool. In just a few words, LouAnn could convey high expectations, strength, and warmth. When she raised her voice, her students felt safe and cared for. The first time I heard her yell at a student, I didn’t realize that I was witnessing a great talent in action. Sometimes, it takes years to recognize a person’s talents.
Many of us in the middle school tried to scold our students with affection, but most couldn’t do it. I certainly wasn’t able to. Over the years, I’ve read dozens of books about teaching and no book has ever said: “When the situation calls for it, try to yell at your students with affection.”
When a student needed more than a yelling—it was usually a boy and it didn’t happen often—LouAnn walked up behind him and pulled him out of his seat by the earlobe. This was called The Hanian Hold. The eighth-grade boys bragged about getting The Hold. It was a badge of honor. They said you couldn’t be an official graduate of the middle school without getting The Hold.
A few parents thought The Hanian Hold wasn’t Quakerly. They didn’t understand that even though LouAnn wasn’t a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quaker), she could find a student’s inner light.