The Van Leer Way

He loves history, and loves teaching unabashedly. Though he claims not to be an intellectual, his knowledge of anthropology and history is both deep and wide—a gentle prompting is sure to unleash
a long and thorough discussion of the attributes of Truman versus Roosevelt, say—and neatly matches his uncanny understanding of adolescents.

Perhaps that knowledge came naturally, and perhaps it was learned. He points to the late Carl Buessow as a mentor and a role model. A Hackley alum of the class of 1965, John returned to his alma mater in 1969 to teach eighth grade Geography while Walter Schneller was on sabbatical. Carl, then head of what is now called the Middle School, married a riotous sense of humor with a firm hand on the wheel—both of which John appreciated immensely. “Things were done Carl’s way, but for a young teacher it was outstanding training. And he was also a scientist, which was kind of interesting, because as an administrator it was always very, very clear cut.” It was an approach, John says, which has translated neatly into his work with teenagers. “That may not be how the world operates, but when you’re dealing with adolescents if you’re very clear with them, and they understand exactly what the line is, they seem to respond to that.”

His short stint teaching under Carl came to a halt in March 1970 with the Vietnam War, and John found himself working overseas; of 21 months of active duty, he spent “five months and five days” in Vietnam. “I unloaded ships. Da Nang and Chu Lai. C rations, beer, soda, and ammunition.”

After the war, John returned to Hackley for a semester, filling in again for Walter Schneller—then on his honeymoon—and teaching two sections
of American History, one section of eighth grade American History, and one section of Current Events.

Though he loved history—his major at Middlebury— he soon heeded the call of another passion, the railroad, working for the Missouri Pacific Railroad
of St. Louis in management. Eventually stationed in Kansas, John learned that the lifestyle meant “you were married to the railroad and they let you live with a girlfriend. Because management is non-union, the philosophy of my bosses was, you were supposed to be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.” After two years he and his wife, Anne, moved back to Tarrytown and back to Hackley. Yet, he says, “Every time I see a train go by, I stop and I look at it. I love it.” Why? “I really like the freight operation. I am much more into freight. I don’t know why, but I think I am impressed by the raw power and the technology. But then also every boxcar you look at, or every car you look at, there’s a separate history to it—starting with its reporting marks. It’s just fascinating.” He still keeps up with what he calls “the industry,” reading such magazines as Trains and Railfan and Railroad.

For years after his return to the Hilltop in 1976, John taught American History and Anthropology. The latter was the Ninth Grade History course that introduced Hackley students to cultural and physical anthropology. The course sought to encourage students to “look at both sides,” John observes. “The golden rule of anthropology is cultural relativism. You’re not supposed to judge. And for ninth graders, it’s the beginning, I would say, of a long journey.” John currently teaches 10th Grade American History, which covers the colonial period through 1900. Exploring the foundations of American Democracy, he finds, teaches students so much about America today as well as about the country’s past.

“Look 
at Thomas Jefferson’s inaugural address and you understand the Tea Party,” he observes. “Back then, it was Alexander Hamilton’s model of government involvement that won. We’re still discussing these questions today.”
In addition, John has taken on Government & Politics, a tremendously popular senior elective. The “Gov” course offers students who enjoyed the Van Leer Experience (or wish they’d had the chance) the opportunity to come back for more—and for John to enjoy teaching students he knew as 10th graders as they mature. He says, “Some classes will tell me, ‘We know we are your favorite class this year.’ The favorite class isn’t always the one with the top students.

Sometimes the best class is the one that surprises you—with kids who make amazing connections you didn’t see coming. They have to have room to say stupid things because the only way to learn is to put something out there and evaluate it, something that might sound crazy, but it turns out there’s something brilliant underneath.”

Thirty-nine years of teaching have made him a fountain of knowledge, especially knowledge that plays to his passion for American history. “Oh, I love it,” he says with a grin. “The stories are fascinating. The people are fascinating.”

Like many history buffs he reads deeply, and then moves on. “I used to really like the Revolutionary period the best,” he says, “but the more I’ve done— I’d say basically since I came back here [to Hackley].... I keep gravitating back to Roosevelt and Truman.” He finds that the avalanche of schoolwork impedes his ability to read for fun during the week, and so he saves his books and magazines for weekends and vacations. While some of his students were relaxing on vacation, for instance, John immersed himself in Doris Kearns Goodwin’s biography of Lincoln. Nonfiction is his preference—with the notable exception of anything by John Grisham and John Le Carre’s spy novels. Pity the poor mailman who delivers the Van Leer mail: it is heavy with magazines! In addition to the two publications about trains, John reads Smithsonian, National Geographic, Natural History, Discover, Archaeology, and KMT (a magazine of Egyptology)—as well as the New York Times and the Journal News every day.

His students reap the benefits of his reading and his complete devotion to them and to the material he teaches—he’ll bring in a relevant article or illustration to show and discuss with them—and so do his colleagues. Years ago, John would send freshmen in his Anthropology class to ask biology teacher Kerry Clingen questions that pertained to both subjects. As Kerry observes, “At a time when nobody [in education] was really integrating subjects, he was doing it.” He was way ahead of the educational curve.

Outside the classroom, he logged many years as a dorm parent, a Class Advisor (the precursor to our Grade Deans) and Community Council Advisor. Dr. Andrew Martorella ’90, Assistant Attending Physician at New York Presbyterian Hospital, remembers: “He dedicated countless hours to the Community Council as the faculty advisor and for four years
we worked together organizing school dances and mini-marathons, morning announcements and pep rallies at football games where he made me wear the hornet costume more than once despite my objections! Mr. Van Leer brought out the best in me after I was elected President of the Community Council my senior year. When I initially stumbled through my first Community Council meeting as President, he was not at all discouraged and helped me ‘just to try to do better the next time around.’ He guided me every step of the way. I will always feel indebted to him for allowing me to develop a sense of leadership and self-confidence that has stayed with me since I graduated from Hackley nearly 25 years ago.”

Just as he mentored students like Andrew, John has mentored new teachers both officially (as a Teacher Mentor) and unofficially. “I learned a lot from him about the kinds of skills that ninth graders need,” Kerry Clingen says. “Hackley was my first teaching experience. I did a lot of other things, but I hadn’t taught before.” (Kerry, now a master teacher herself, has mentored other young teachers along the way.)

Upper School Director Andy King began his own Hackley career as a Van Leer mentee in the History department. “When I interviewed for the division head position, everyone kept asking, ‘How will you deal with JVL?’ He had been my colleague and mentor, and they worried if I could manage now to
be his ‘boss.’ I told them, ‘No problem. I will always be straight with him and he will always be straight with me.’” John’s integrity continues to inspire and guide Andy. “He is a sounding board, but he is also
a mirror—the mirror that makes you look at yourself and ask ‘Are you sure you want to look back on this as part of your legacy?’ And, sometimes, he is also the wall—showing you the hard line you cannot cross. He has absolutes and he has standards, and they are all based on seeing things clearly.”

His students appreciate those standards as well. Michael Leonard ’14 observes, “Mr. Van Leer adheres to values of integrity, honesty, responsibility, and fairness more strictly than the vast majority of people. In turn, he expects the same thing from every single one of his students. Nobody is exempt, and he is very clear about what he wants. Furthermore, if you are willing to give him your all, he will absolutely go all the way for you.”

His colleague of 28 years and friend Anne Siviglia adds, “There’s a purity to what he does, in which the student and the student’s well-being always come first. And he’s been that kind of friend, the one to whom
we can always turn, the one to whom young faculty gravitate for guidance.” Anne reflects, “Over the years, I’ve seen him do so much that’s never recognized, because that’s not why he does it. I can only imagine how many lives he has touched or changed.”

A one-year sabbatical in 1991–92 punctuated John’s 39 years at Hackley. Can you guess how John spent much of that time? Not far from campus is Philipsburg Manor, a 300-year-old working farm, part of Historic Hudson Valley, a tract of restoration projects set up years ago by the Rockefellers. “I worked at Philipsburg primarily with the miller Peter Curtis and the farmer, Stephen Kozak,” John says. “I was interested in the operation of the water-powered mill, but we rarely did much with it. I did learn I did not want to muck out the cows’ stalls on cold mornings nor clean out the shed where the sheep spent the nights and winters! I also learned how to split locust branches to make fence rails and bore holes in locust posts, which was no fun at all. I gained a lot of respect for how hard it was to wrest a living from the land in the 18th century.”

That year enabled John to take a time machine to the 18th century—a dream come true for a history teacher. It also coincided with his children’s Upper School years at Hackley, and allowed him to spend more time with his four kids. “Having the fall off gave me the opportunity to see my daughter Anneke play her soccer games,” he recalls.

John and his wife Anne, who works as a library and media specialist at Whitby School, reared their four kids on campus, moving to a home off campus only when “the baby” left home for college. It was an idyllic life in many ways. “It seems like just yesterday we were going to the Lower School, to see this production, or that production. You can duck out between classes, go over, see a 15-minute presentation, you could see your kid play the trumpet or act in some play. It was a lot of fun. There aren’t many events in our kids’ school careers that we missed, collectively.”

The kids—Devon, Anneke, Piet, and Edward—are now all grown up and on their own. Devon earned her Ph.D in Paleontology and balances motherhood—she has three children—with her work as an instructor in anatomy and physiology at Oregon State University. An RN, Anneke works as an ER nurse at Stamford Hospital in Connecticut; “she is the third generation of the family to be a nurse,” John says (and he points out that both his science-focused daughters took AP Biology with Kathy Szabo). A Producer for ESPN’s International Soccer Division, Piet is married with one daughter. And Edward continues the family tradition of teaching as a Middle School math teacher in the Morrisania section of the Bronx. He and his wife Patti have two sons. The Van Leer clan is thriving, well launched into adulthood.

Besides reading history, and visiting his kids and grandchildren, what does he do in his spare time? He gardens, but he says not as successfully as he did at Hackley, when he had a huge, sunny vegetable garden. An excellent cook—ask him for his French Onion Soup recipe (from scratch, no less!)—he is probably the best barbequer on the faculty, and generously shares many of his grilling tips and recipes for marinades.

The hobbies add color to the character, in part because he excels at all of them. Whatever John does, he does well—and of course first and foremost that means teaching. Not surprisingly, he’s the kind of teacher that kids point to as a pivotal influence in their lives. He’s also the kind of teacher kids want to keep in touch with past the point of adolescence. Paige Harazin, who now works as Recruiting Manager at McKinsey & Company, commented, “as my good friend Christie said, it’s not often that you see an interesting piece in the New York Times years after you have graduated and send it to your high school teacher without a second thought, both because you’d love to hear his point of view, and because you know he’ll get a kick out of it and can’t wait to share another laugh.”

The magnetic pull of the Hilltop is a theme, perhaps, among our alumni-faculty—and John is the most senior among them. He was really just a little boy when he matriculated here: a fifth grader, and not yet a history buff. That passion wouldn’t hit for two more years—until his seventh grade American History course, and Dave Bridges, whom he calls “a great storyteller.” Next followed Ancient Medieval History, taught by Tom Braine—whom John remembers as another “amazing storyteller.” These dynamic teachers ignited in John a love of history, and one without an “off” switch.

“That’s the beauty of independent education,” says John. “What’s fascinating about kids is that it’s not the material they usually respond to, it’s the personality of the teacher first. That’s what seems to draw them in.”

It’s interesting that he should say that, since his own students say much the same about him. In
her college essay, Christie Philbrick-Wheaton ’00 (now Vice President, Investor Relations and Fund Management at Metropolitan Real Estate Equity Management and Vice President of the Hackley Alumni Association) called him “my teacher, mentor and father figure at school” and observed, “It is the people who stand behind us, ready to catch us if we fall, that make our journey possible. Mr. Van Leer has been there since the beginning of my journey.”

A narrative thread running through my conversations with John’s current and former students is that he is especially adept at reinforcing their self-esteem. As Christie put it so adroitly, “He encouraged us to find our confidence.” For Evan Weisberg ’14, it goes beyond confidence to a deep sense of self-respect. “Mr. Van Leer wouldn’t accept less than my best work. When I got an assignment back, if I didn’t do as well as I could have, not only was I disappointed in myself, I was disappointed that I let him down. He didn’t necessarily push you to work harder, he made you WANT to work harder.”

That knack comes, perhaps, from the fact that John is invested in his students’ overall experience—a commitment he believes his colleagues share. “One of the great things about Hackley is that you get to know the kids in so many ways. You watch them interact with others—in sports, in plays, through community service—and it makes a big difference. You get to know them well. The students may not recognize that their teachers are watching them develop, watching the progress they have made.”

Thirty-nine years covers more than a generation, and as that second generation finds its way to his classroom, John takes particular pleasure in telling a student, “Go home and tell your mother you were brilliant today.” He says, “I also taught that parent,” and it’s clear that John’s pleasure and pride mirrors the parent’s. He observes, “It’s such a validating experience to see these parents wanting to give the gift of Hackley to their own children. And it is a gift. A huge gift.”

One of those second generation kids, Katie Gallop ’13, admits she was, as a ninth grader, terrified of
Mr. Van Leer. “My instinct was to run the other way,” she recalls. As a 10th grader in his class, however, she learned that he was anything but scary. “He commanded respect like no teacher I had seen before. I learned and retained more in his class than any other I took at Hackley. To say Hackley is losing a legend says too little of the man who made such an impact on 39 years of Hackley students.”

Looking toward retirement, John says, “It has been wonderful doing this. I get paid to do something I love. It’s pretty nice. No question about it.” He will miss the daily interaction with students tremendously. “No two days are the same. It keeps you on your toes. And, I don’t know how I will replace the intellectual stimulation. Working with Hackley kids is tremendously stimulating.”