The incredible story by reporter Tara Parker-Pope and videograher Zack Conkle.
The story itself is drawn from Conkle’s short film “Wright’s Law,” about
Louisville Male High School teacher Jeffrey Wright.
“Wright’s Law“ won a gold medal in multimedia in the
national College Photographer of the
Year competition, run by the University of Missouri at Columbia.
Conkle, 22, a photojournalism graduate of Western Kentucky University and a
former student of Wright’s, told the Times he made the film because he got
frustrated when trying to describe his former teacher’s flamboyant, energetic
style.
The piece starts by profiling Wright as an example of what an engaged teacher
can mean to students in the classroom and in their extracurricular lives.
Richard Suh talks about how he manages to fall asleep in every class except
physics, which Wright teachers. Chelsea Fox describes Wright as the teacher
she’ll remember when she’s 85 years old.
In the video, Wright is a showman, using home-built hovercraft and exploding
gas to demonstrate the laws of physics.
Ah, but that’s just the beginning.
A student who says she’s been on her own since 15 talks about how Wright is
the person she goes to with her problems.
And Wright describes hearing about everything from violent neighborhoods to
abusive parents to abortions to runaways in his students’ lives of quiet
desperation.
It’s why, he says, a one-size-fits-all education approach doesn’t work.
Then he goes home to his own problem – his son Adam, 12, who has Joubert
syndrome, an extremely rare disease that leaves his son’s brain encased in a
body that won’t respond.
Once each school year, Wright gives a lecture about his son and his views on
the meaning of life, and it’s tough to watch without getting emotional.
From the Times story:
Mr. Wright said he decided to share his son’s story when his physics
lessons led students to start asking him “the big questions.” “When you start
talking about physics, you start to wonder, ‘What is the purpose of it all?’ ”
he said in an interview. “Kids started coming to me and asking me those ultimate
questions. I wanted them to look at their life in a little different way — as
opposed to just through the laws of physics — and give themselves more purpose
in life.” Mr. Wright starts his lecture by talking about the hopes and dreams he
had for Adam and his daughter, Abbie, now 15. He recalls the day Adam was born,
and the sadness he felt when he learned of his condition.
“All those dreams about ever watching my son knock a home run over the
fence went away,” he tells the class. “The whole thing about where the universe
came from? I didn’t care. … I started asking myself, what was the point of
it?” All that changed one day when Mr. Wright saw Abbie, about 4 at the time,
playing with dolls on the floor next to Adam. At that moment he realized that
his son could see and play — that the little boy had an inner life. He and his
wife, Nancy, began teaching Adam simple sign language. One day, his son signed
“I love you.”