FACULTY


Using Her Powers for Good DEBBY SCHAUFFLER, ENGLISH


W


hen I first arrived at OES in 2003, one of my first impressions


of Debby Schauff ler was that she seemed to blur slightly, like a plucked rubber band, even when supposedly at rest. In some of the comic books that I sneaked home in my trumpet case at the age of nine, there appeared a character called the Flash. The impression of his super speed was rendered by a Russian-doll chain of slightly smaller Flashes blurring into a lurid, tapering contrail behind him. I soon developed a habit of glancing behind Debby, looking for her Flash aura. She thinks quickly, talks quickly, and acts quickly. Among other intel- lectuals, she stands decidedly near the “git ‘er done” end of the spectrum (blurring slightly, of course), and the propor- tion of occasions on which this speed-of-light cerebration results in a good idea is positively inde- cent. The least she could do for those of us trailing in her dust would be to walk into a tree once in a while. Perhaps I can


resort only to such comic-book powers to explain how she has been able to teach a full load of classes, burn through the stacks of papers


WWW.OES.EDU WINTER 2011 OES MAGAZINE 9 9


that such classes produce, attend teacher planning meetings, grade deans’ meetings, meet- ings of the choir in which she sings, and weekly meetings of a championship trivia team, and somehow find time to read pro- digious numbers of a prodigious variety of books. It is this last of her super


powers from which OES may have profited the most over the last 20 years. My second-oldest and easily most important impression of Debby is her love of reading, yoked to a great talent for communicating that love to students with enthu- siasm, humor, and a dead-on memory for quotations. The variety of senior electives that she has taught since I have been here tells the story: Poetry, Shakespeare, Middle Eastern Literature, and The Historical


Novel are only a recent sample. According to her sister, teaching is all she ever really wanted to do for a living, except playing shortstop for the Oakland A’s. To her students she introduces great books with wit and glee. With equal wit and glee she introduces, to me and her other friends on the faculty, the breakthrough efforts, light-bulb insights, and other moments of freshman greatness from her students. (Good as she is at teaching those senior elec- tives, she loves her freshmen.) The line of OES students who have been brought by Debby Schauff ler to love reading lit- erature, talking about literature, and even writing literature now stretches 20 years long. Anyone who loves OES can only pray for another 20 years.


by Art Ward, English teacher


Debby Schauffler: Humanities & English Smith College, BA UC-Berkeley, MA Appointed 1990


“The proportion of occasions on which (her) speed-of-light cerebration results in a good idea is positively indecent. The least she could do for those of us trailing in her dust would be to walk into a tree once in a while.”


— Art Ward


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