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A Tribute to Teachers: Remembering George Heitz · HAVE FAITH LET IT BEGIN®

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  The following message is dedicated to George Heights.
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  George Heights was my math teacher.
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  George Heights went on to be with the Lord today.
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  George Heights was able to be there for my wedding.
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  George Heights was a teacher.
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  What is a teacher to you? What is a teacher to me?
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  A good teacher can inspire hope, ignite the imagination, and instill love of learning.
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  Today, Dr. E returns, and I'm going to ask the one question that I think everybody always wonders.
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  Who was your favorite teacher, and how did they inspire you?
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  Have faith, let it begin. Starts right now.
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  Dr. E, little bit of an emotional start there for us because we're usually up
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  and peppy, but you know, late breaking news.
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  Just got a call about an hour ago that a very good gentleman by the name of
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  George Heights passed the highway.
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  He was 91 years old and he is the one that ignited me to love mathematics.
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  And he was also the guy that always told me that I could be anything I wanted to be.
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  And he was the first guy to show me how to use a floppy disk on a computer and
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  load up the screen. That's how far back I go. How are you, Dr. E?
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  Oh, my God. I'm so sorry for your loss and for the loss of so many pupils and
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  students that he must have helped throughout his career.
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  He sounds like he was a very special man, a very gifted teacher and educator.
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  And it's very nice that we're honoring him on today's podcast.
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  Definitely. And what's really cool is you know, for 20 something years,
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  never knew he was a member of my church.
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  And when I went into church one day, I said, what are you doing here?
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  He goes, I'm a member. I go, well, I haven't been here in a long time.
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  So, Hey, and yeah, he very faith driven man.
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  He held that, you know, deep inside and didn't try to push that on anyone,
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  but it was nice to know that he had great faith.
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  So, you know, Dr. E, as many of you know, my first grade teacher, Mrs.
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  Klein, she's got a new name. So that's why I use her or made an old name,
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  but she was an inspiration to me.
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  And that George was a very big inspiration to me.
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  I'm going to ask you the question, my friend, did you have a teacher that you
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  can recall that inspired you or you may even have two and that's perfectly okay.
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  The floor is yours, buddy.
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  Oh, awesome. Yeah. Well, father, Tom was my guy. So I went to a technical high
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  school in Batterson, New Jersey, and I was in the electronics,
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  you know, class or the, you know, that was my.
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  What was going to be my, I guess, my trade. And we had this young brother,
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  his name was Brother Vince, who was probably as horrible a teacher as you could
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  ever think of, a very sadistic and mean and cruel man.
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  And I always wanted to meet him on the street one day so I could punch him right in his suckle.
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  No, I wouldn't do that. But I would definitely, if he put out his hand,
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  I don't know if I would take it, Angel.
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  That's how much anger I have toward this teacher.
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  And after two years of electronics, they brought in a guy from Boston.
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  His name was Father Tuck, who was just the, whatever Vince was,
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  was the absolute opposite.
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  He was quiet. He was kind. He was loving. He was nurturing.
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  He was kind of a real geeky kind of guy, maybe even a little bit on the spectrum.
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  He never looked you in the eye and that type of thing, but so brilliant and
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  so inspiring. and to the point where he basically put a policy in place that changed my life.
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  So when Brother Vince gave a test, he took great pride in trying to make the
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  average of the test of 30 or make everyone fail the test because,
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  as I said, he was very sadistic and very cruel.
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  And when Father Tom gave a test, what you would do is when you were done with
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  the test, You would go up to him and he would grade the test right in front of you.
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  And if you got three questions wrong, he would ask you if you wanted to go back and give it a try.
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  Now you wouldn't get full credit for it, but what father, what father Tom was
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  telling us is that he wasn't really, didn't really care about what your grade was.
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  Meaning if you got a 90, 95 or whatever, or 75 or an 80, that wasn't the,
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  his purpose, His purpose was to teach.
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  His purpose was for you to learn.
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  So when you would go back and give it another try, sometimes he would give you
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  a little help or give you a hint.
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  If he did do that, then the amount of credit you would get, say that particular
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  question was worth 10 points.
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  If you got it wrong, but you wanted to give it another try, he might give you
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  eight points if you got it right, or he might give you five points if you needed
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  a little push or whatever.
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  But the point was that what that told me was that here's a guy who really cared
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  about us learning the material, not really caring about anything other than
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  our education and the success of his teaching.
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  And that always stood out for me. And the second thing about him that was so
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  inspiring was he was an absolute computer genius. And he knew computers right
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  at the beginning of computers back in the 1970s.
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  Because he was a priest, all of his patents and all of his ideas and all of
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  his, you know, all of his insights into the computer world would have made him
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  a trillionaire, honestly, you know, maybe not a trillionaire,
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  but certainly he would have had,
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  tens of millions of dollars, you know, working for Microsoft or working for whatever.
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  That's how brilliant he was. But because he took the vow of poverty,
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  you know, as a priest, you know, he never made a dime on his intelligence.
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  So I find people like Father Tom so inspiring that they do it for the right reason.
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  And, you know, and I've, to this day, every time,
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  you know, I'm approached by somebody from my
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  old high school or whatever and and
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  they ask me hey you want me to relay any you know
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  any words or any thoughts back to some people i would say well make sure you
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  always tell father tom that he was as he was the best teacher i've ever had
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  one of the best humans i ever met and i and i angel have been taught by people
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  who have won nobel prizes people who are absolutely like from Harvard or from Oxford or,
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  you know, you name it, I've had them as my teacher and no one even can touch father Tom by even,
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  you know, by a country mile.
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  I spoke a little too much. I apologize, but that's, that, that was the guy who inspired me.
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  No. And that's, and that was the purposes that, you know, to share a story like
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  that. And I hope that everyone will share that as well.
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  Let me end with this. Well, actually before we end, I just want everybody out
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  there, of the half faith family.
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  If anyone happens to come across a guy named brother Vince, please tell me where
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  he lives because I have some unfinished business to hang out with.
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  Nice. Nice. Nice. So as we stated in the very beginning, I'm going to end today's
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  episode, the way we started, you know, George Heights was a very,
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  very integral part, integral, integral part of my, my math and my studies.
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  And he was just a very inspiring gentleman. He was able to be there at my wife's and I wedding.
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  But I want to reach out and tell you one of the parts of his obituary that I think is phenomenal.
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  And it goes like this. George taught fourth and fifth graders for many years,
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  spending most of his career at Walden Elementary.
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  He was a graduate of Walden High School when it was a high school.
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  He earned his bachelor's degree from Central College in Iowa and his master's from SUNY New Paltz.
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  After his retirement, he pushed his lifelong interest and craftsmanship,
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  completing an NRA gunsmithing program at Trinidad State College in Colorado.
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  He was also a United States Army veteran. George served at Fort Hakuchwa, Arizona,
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  which was an award-winning marksman, competing in the Empire State Games in
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  New York State and in national matches at Camp Perry, Ohio.
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  So he was a long time member of the Middletown and Ulster County Pistol and
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  Rifle Association. So...
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  You know, his wife and him both were at my wedding.
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  His wife went on to be with the Lord many years ago.
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  And that really hurt his heart because that was the love of his life. They are together.
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  They are together at this very moment and they're dancing and they're smiling
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  and they're no longer suffering or they are now at peace.
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  So to all of you teachers out there that don't get the recognition that you
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  deserve, that are still living and still with us, you inspire us.
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  You teach us how to be better people. You prepare us to take on the world.
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  We can go on and talk about how you're underpaid. That goes without certain.
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  But sometimes in life, when you realize the amount of gratitude,
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  the amount of things that you've taught us as children, hopefully will be worth
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  more to you than gold itself.
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  Today, we pray for all teachers that are continuing to do everything they can.
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  We lift up in prayer the family of George, who are mourning and celebrating his life.
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  We also want to lift up Joyce, who I know personally, his daughter,
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  who's done everything for this gentleman.
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  She's a very good daughter, and I'm proud of her and what she did.
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  Well, may God be with each and every one of you. May he shine his light upon
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  you and grant each and every single one of you peace on earth.
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  And never forget, have faith, let it begin, baby. It's good to be back,
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  Angel. All right. Take care, everyone.
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  Music.