起点传媒

The following post was sent to us by Peter Ferry who taught English at Lake Forest High School for twenty-seven years. Dave Eggers was one of his students.聽

When I taught Dave Eggers during his sophomore year at Lake Forest High School near Chicago, did I know that he would go on to do great things? Not really. I knew he had a special mind, but you know that about several kids every year. Not many of them do with theirs what Dave has done with his.聽How has he done it?聽It seems to me, if you will allow me to extrapolate, that he has followed a few simple rules.

1. Be goofy. Dave likes to say that in high school, he wasn鈥檛 popular with girls because he had zits and his 鈥渘ame sounded like food.鈥澛營 don鈥檛 know about that, but I do know that he wasn鈥檛 afraid to be a little nerdy, to sometimes spend his lunch hour in our first computer lab.聽He says that that鈥檚 where he learned the desktop publishing skills he used to start Might magazine a few years later, and Might launched his career.聽That Dave didn鈥檛 care very much about being cool is, of course, ironic because today he is a kind of rock star.
2. Be loyal.聽In high school Dave had lots of friends, and twenty-five years later he still does, and many of them are the same people.聽It seemed for a while every time I called McSweeney鈥檚, a different voice would say, 鈥淗i, Mr. Ferry.聽Remember me? I was in your so-and-so class.鈥澛燜inally I asked, 鈥淗ow many of you guys from Lake Forest High School are out there in San Francisco working with Dave?鈥澛燭he answer was eighteen. I find that quite astonishing, and I think it is important in understanding everything Dave does, which is always more about people than about ideas.
3. Listen to your elders.One of these was my mentor and Dave鈥檚 junior English teacher, Jay Criche, who聽wrote on one of his papers, 鈥淵ou should be a writer.鈥澛燞mmm.聽Dave hadn鈥檛 thought of that.聽Another voice which Dave heard was that of our colleague Dave Hawkins, who, when Eggers was publishing Might in the early nineties, wrote to him, 鈥淒on鈥檛 you guys ever get tired of making fun of things?鈥澛燭his led to some soul searching on the staff and ultimately a change in editorial direction.聽But maybe the best piece of advice we offered Dave was the standard English teacher one:聽鈥淲rite what you know.鈥澛燱hen Dave鈥檚 parents died during his junior year in college, leaving Dave鈥檚 thirteen-year-old brother for him and his siblings to rear, Dave wrote about it in the sassy, irreverent, never maudlin, and always original Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius that became an international bestseller.

4. But also, don鈥檛 listen to your elders.One of these was me.聽In our public speaking class, I gave an assignment for a persuasive speech which invited kids to pontificate.聽Dave didn鈥檛 do it.聽Instead, he tried to persuade his classmates to join him on a bike ride to the center of the earth, his main selling point being that it would be mostly downhill.聽I didn鈥檛 penalize him for not taking my assignment seriously and gave him an 鈥淎鈥� for creativity. Dave thinks I treated him with respect and good humor, and that鈥檚 where our relationship began.聽I鈥檇 like to say that I was his mentor, and maybe I was . . . briefly, but in truth, he鈥檚 become mine. He has been very supportive and helpful in my late-blooming writing career.聽And there鈥檚 the loyalty thing again.聽Dave, above all else, is true to people.聽But even more important than not listening to me, Dave didn鈥檛 listen to his elders who said, 鈥淭his writing stuff is all well and good in high school, but look, you鈥檙e going to have to put food on the table.鈥澛燭he result is that Dave Eggers is changing the world.

5. Which brings us to, don鈥檛 put your profits up your nose.Dave certainly hasn鈥檛.聽Instead, he started a bookstore, a publishing house, one of the best literary journals in the country, a network of nonprofit tutoring centers in cities around the country, and a foundation to support education reform.
6. Also, keep on working.聽I cannot read as fast as Dave Eggers writes.聽His output makes my head spin.聽But it also makes me think of another goofball named Pete Hanrahan who was elected senior class president as a joke but fell in love with learning in college and used to come back to talk to my senior classes.聽Once, when a kid asked him how many hours a week he had to study, Pete answered, 鈥淚f you find what you love to do, the question is 鈥榟ow many hours in a week do you get to study.鈥欌�澛燚ave Eggers loves what he does.
7. And don鈥檛 look back. Dave doesn鈥檛 read his notices or reviews because by the time they鈥檙e posted, he鈥檚 already moved on.聽I know this because I read some of his stuff in manuscript, and I know that he鈥檚 always three steps ahead of the rest of us.聽That鈥檚 why people never say of his new book, 鈥淕ood old Dave.聽You always know what you鈥檒l get with an Eggers.鈥澛營nstead, we say, 鈥淲hat the heck?聽What鈥檚 he up to now?聽I don鈥檛 get it.鈥澛燭hat鈥檚 how I felt about The Circle the first time I read it.聽Now a week doesn鈥檛 go by that I don鈥檛 say, 鈥淭here it is!聽There鈥檚 The Circle.鈥�

So where do we as Dave鈥檚 teachers come into all of this?聽We don鈥檛 much.聽I think we knew enough to encourage rather than discourage, to recognize that genius doesn鈥檛 come in a can but grows in a garden, to be honest, respectful, amused, impressed, and appreciative, and mostly to stay out of Dave鈥檚 way.聽But I am going to brag just a little.聽Dave once said that the six best teachers he ever had were at Lake Forest High School.聽We are very, very proud of that.

Peter Ferry聽has written two novels:聽 (2008) and (2015).