Wednesday, October 16, 2019
Mr. Elder was my teacher for health class and driver's education class during my time at Danville High School as part of the class of 1989, which included his son Scott. Although Mr. Elder was highly respected by both colleagues and students, I never once felt judged in his presence. Instead, students felt safe in opening up to him, because we knew that he was truly on our side. We saw his kindness, sincerity, and genuine concern not only for each student's academic progress but also for our mental well-being and for our ability to enjoy life, rather than just to get through it. We wanted to do our best for him because we knew that he deserved nothing less.
He was obviously wise, but as another commenter said on this page, he shared his wisdom by talking with us, not talking down to us. He also modeled for us what humility looks like. I remember at least one year when he would wake up early once a week (Tuesdays, I think) to meet with a group of us at school to study the Bible together and talk about how it applied to our lives.
I always looked forward to his health class, whose curriculum he created and revised each year. To this day, I still use the concepts that he taught us in that class. He always insisted that it was NOT a psychology class!
When I'm driving on a highway and passing an entrance ramp, I frequently recall him telling me during a road session not to be too nice by always slowing down to give the newcomers a chance to merge. He said (paraphrasing here) that niceness is great except when it leads to confusion and car accidents. 30 years later, I'm teaching my oldest kid to drive, and when she hesitates as other cars are trying to merge onto the road, I ask her, "What would Mr. Elder do?" So he's already a legend in my house.
