“I got to Gould in the fall and was unsettled to find that I didn’t have any classes assigned. I went to talk to [then Head of School] Bill Clough and [then Assistant Head of School] Dutch Dresser and they told me I’d be gone too much of the winter. But I really wanted to teach. So they gave me two sections of 10th-grade history, enough to get my feet wet. The students I had those first two years can probably attest to the fact that I was a better coach than I was a classroom teacher.” 

Smith now sees he was naïve to imagine he could step into a teaching role without the life experience to understand how to create connections with students and how to make the course material relevant. Also, as predicted, his coaching schedule posed obstacles. To address the problem, he and former English teacher Lucia Owen co-taught an elective they called “The Idea of Religion” that drew on Smith’s college studies and allowed him to observe and learn from a master teacher.

“We taught that course for three years and had so much fun,” Smith says. “It helped me become a better educator, and I’m thankful.” 

Smith also learned a valuable lesson from former history teacher Paul McGuire. 

“When I came back as a faculty member,” Smith recalls, “Paul dug up some old correspondence between Gould and my family about some trouble I’d been having as a student. He said, ‘I usually burn these things but I want you to have them. They serve as a reminder that we are all works in progress—every one of us, every day of our lives.’”