Scene Around: A Teacher, A Test & A 90th Birthday

Former Fair Haven Knollwood School teacher Jack Graybill on his 85th birthday
Photo/Kristie Kelty

Remember when you were a kid and you thought that your probably 40-year-old teacher was ancient? It’s a pretty common notion for young ones. Then they reach their 40s and wonder what the heck they were thinking.

Well, many former students of Fair Haven’s Knollwood School are marveling at how they could think such a thing and where the time went as they wished their former history and computers teacher Jack Graybill a happy, healthy 90th birthday on Monday. Thanks and Memories of Graybill teaching moments flooded a private social media page dedicated to those lost. And a favorite former teacher was found.

Many years after retirement, friends and fans of Mr. Graybill resurfaced as did he (in thought) when his daughter Kristie Kelty posted a photo of him poised to blow out some birthday candles — one for each decade. She explained that the photo was of his 85th birthday, but, hey, it worked out that there happened to be nine candles on that cake. Call it a five-year wish come true. And so many were so happy to see him again and remember times in some of those three decades he spent as a Knollwood teacher, even days or moments.

The moments …

Many credited Mr. Graybill with giving them a love for and appreciation of history. Some thanked him for sharing his love of word puzzles and remember him every time they do one. Others remembered his little rubber stamps. They were cool back then. Many strived for that “Excellent” one. There were many moments in many classes.

In the classroom, Mr. Graybill was one of those calm, cool and collected teachers who had a penchant for keeping students organized and neat. In the earlier years of his Knollwood career, he taught history. Later, with the advent of technology, he taught computers, albeit technology that was akin to that of a floppy disk Flintstones era for millennials.

He was known as a very good teacher with a mild manner, yet a stern, amusing way of assuring that lessons were learned. Some of those lessons strayed outside of the subject matter and into the organizational matter. One such lesson was the famous Graybill Gravity Test.

Teaching in an era when technology and storage on cloud meant only luggage on a plane, Mr. Graybill gave disorganized students some incentive to keep their notes neat.

He would announce that the Graybill Gravity Test needed to be conducted. With that, the student’s books and/or notebooks would be opened and turned upside down (in a fan-like) presentation and he’d see just what fell out. If lots of things fell, the test was failed. And lots of things fell, and rolled, and flew … fail. It did prompt a lot of giggles, though.

I do recall, too, that he taught his students how to properly cover their text books with paper bags so that the book covers, too, did not fall off during the test.

The Graybill Gravity Test has been proven as a recipe for success for not only students, but for all time-honored teaching traditions. Parents everywhere have probably at least several times a week conducted it unwittingly, cloud-configured smart phones, tablets and laptops be damned. Call it a shake-down.

So, here’s to Mr. Graybill, lessons learned, teaching moments and lots of Graybill Gravity Test shake-ups and shake-downs!

Thanks for the moments, Mr. Graybill. See? History with you is remembered. Happy 90th Birthday! Walk on air. You deserve it!