‘Mr. Grossman was pretty good at being a teacher,’ says a Paul Revere shop student. ‘He always explained everything and he had a lot of patience.’ After 37 years, Robert Grossman is retiring as the middle school’s industrial arts and stage craft teacher. ‘I don’t know where the years have gone,’ Grossman says. ‘One day you wake up and it’s done. I’ve really loved this job as a teacher.’ With energy and ideas that still come with mercurial speed, it’s hard to believe that this is Grossman’s last year in the classroom. Growing up in Los Angeles, Grossman attended Audubon Middle School and Dorsey High School. During high school, he participated in the ‘4 by 4’ program, which meant he was in the classroom for four hours in the morning, and in the afternoon, he worked four hours with a business as an apprentice. He thinks the program was valuable because some of his friends went on to own their own plumbing and construction companies, skills ‘that can’t be outsourced to India.’ Although the apprentice program gave Grossman enough money to buy a car, it’s also what steered him to college. While he was working on sign installation on the 10th floor of a building, he looked down and thought, ‘What am I doing here?’ Grossman received his bachelor’s degree from Cal State L.A. and his master’s from Cal State Northridge. He credits his longevity in teaching to the four ‘F’s’: firm, fair, and friendly. ‘If a teacher can’t do the first three, then he gets the fourth: F***ed.’ Relaxed and philosophical, Grossman reflects on his career and the changing times in education. He can’t stand the way they’ve increased testing in schools. ‘It’s past annoying. We used to do it in one or two days.’ He also doesn’t believe that every teacher in the district teaching the same subject should be required to be on the same page at the same time. ‘When you march in step, you ruin the creativity.’ Nor does he like the way the kids are labeled with learning issues; he doesn’t feel it does them any favors. ‘If I had gone to school today, I would have been identified as one of those kids.’ When asked about the drugs, like Ritalin, given to ‘hyperactive’ kids, he replies: ‘In my classes, I’d rather have a real body than a zombie.’ During his career at Paul Revere, Grossman worked under seven different principals, teaching everything from drafting, print shop, photography, wood and metal shop and stage craft to art and math. He was responsible for bringing the yearbook back to Revere during the 1990s. ‘In my years of being here, people always fight to save music and art programs, but no one was there to save Industrial Arts. Kids are not completing school now. One of the reasons is I.A. is gone, it gave them a direction, a way to earn a living. Not every kid is wired for college.’ He thinks the programs should be brought back in the schools because ‘everyone deserves a chance to succeed somewhere. When you make it all writing and math, you leave out the kids who have mechanical ability.’ Shop and stage craft help all students, Grossman feels, because it gives them a sense of accomplishment. They design the project. When they start to build, the first thing they get are lessons in safety. As one student so astutely put it, ‘The most important thing is how to be safe because if you aren’t safe while making your box or sawing some wood, then you might lose your finger.’ After safety, students learn valuable life lessons such as how to share tools and machines, get along, and clean up after themselves. The students also learn how to measure and the importance of accuracy, not always the easiest skill to conquer. ‘The most important thing I learned is the difficulty of perfecting a project,’ one student observed. Grossman and his wife Jane have two daughters. Elyse Grossman-Oxman has a master’s degree and is teaching English in San Francisco, and Jennifer Grossman started an apparel line called ANKH a year and half ago. The ANKH line became so successful that June has been pressed into service in her daughter’s business. When Robert can extricate his wife, they plan to start traveling. He loves to dance, both square and ballroom, and plans to spend more time doing that next year. Robert also plays the banjo and plans to dust that off. One student sums it all up: ‘I liked Mr. Grossman because he taught me everything I know. He is funny and nice. He is the best teacher.’
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