Letitia Barsan
Awarded, 2005
Letitia BarsanAwarded, 2005 |
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PRESENTER: Mark Barber
Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for welcoming Chris and myself to this gathering. You know, I have been an attorney for nearly 20 years and I still get nervous every time I address a group. As George Jessel once observed: “The human brain starts working the moment you are born and never stops till you stand up to speak in public”.
I am Mark Barber and today it is my honor to present this year’s recipient of the Revere Alumni Association’s Distinguished Educator Award; My first grade teacher, Letitia “Tish” Barsan.
Mrs. Barsan, in the 20 plus years you spent teaching at Hillcrest School, you touched a lot of lives. Lives of young children, full of innocent wonder and eager to learn. Lives of parents of those children who found in you a valuable partner in growing and shaping those young minds. Lives of other teachers and educators who had the privilege of working with you over the years and who came to know and appreciate your competence, your professionalism, your generosity, and perhaps most of all, your compassion.
Mrs. Barsan is an educator, a teacher. Thousands of years ago in Rome, Cicero asked: “What greater or better gift can we offer the republic than to teach and instruct our youth?”. What better gift indeed? Though it has been 44 years, I still have vivid, specific joyous memories of first grade. That’s because of you Mrs. Barsan. I remember that one day I asked you to tie my shoe for me. It had come undone during school. I remember you said “No I won’t tie it for you”. And then I remember you taught me how to tie my shoes and I went home that day proud of my new skill.
I remember the old painted plaster handprints everyone in our class made to present to our parents. Talk about your hands on learning. And my hand print still hangs in a place of distinction on my mother’s wall. And I’ll bet there are a lot more handprints hanging proudly on parental walls.
But its not the individual facts or items learned that I value so much about my time with Mrs. Barsan. Its that she shaped an early year in my life long education, she taught me to love the process of learning and specifically, of reading. Plato said “The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life”. My love of reading, fostered so may years ago in that Hillcrest first grade class room remains unabated to this day.
So, Mrs. Barsan, in spirit with all those whose lives you have affected, all those whose minds you have touched and left the better for that touch, and on behalf of the Revere Alumni Association, I am delighted to present you with their Distinguished Educator Award. If I may indulge in one final quotation, let me paraphrase Ronald Reagan from his farewell address and say: Mrs. Barsan, you did it. You weren’t just marking time. You made a difference.
Thank you.
