Ode to a Teacher
by More than two decades after being in her classes, a former instrumental music student pays tribute to the high school teacher that inspired him the most.
The University of North Carolina had Dean Smith.
UCLA had John Wooden.
Paterson, New Jersey’s Eastside High School had Joe Clark of Lean on Me fame.
Garfield High School in East Los Angeles had Jaime Escalante of Stand and Deliver fame.
These four men were all iconic educators and coaches who touched the lives of not only their students and athletes, but millions of people worldwide.
Along with these great teachers, Santa Monica, California had an instrumental music teacher who in the views of myself and countless others, was just as iconic and inspirational as coaches Wooden and Smith, as well as Mr. Clark and Sr. Escalante.
This woman never won 900 basketball games or ten national championships on the hardwood in twelve years (seven consecutively), and no one ever made a movie about her, but to the young adolescents of the famous seaside community, seven miles up the road from Beverly Hills and 15 miles to the west of downtown Los Angeles, Lida Oliver Beasley was their John Wooden, their Jaime Escalante.
Originally hailing from Arkansas, Mrs. Beasley – I refuse to call her Lida because I feel it would be disrespectful – taught band and orchestra at Santa Monica’s John Adams Junior High School, Santa Monica High School and Santa Monica College for roughly twenty years from the 1970s to the early 1990s, serving as the ultimate mentor to thousands of young people, some of them gifted musicians, others – like me – not so much.
I was personally blessed to have Mrs. Beasley as a teacher during my high school and early college years in the 1980s. As an overwhelmed, intimidated, and sometimes humiliated 15-year old beginner in Samohi’s (short for Santa Monica High) marching band who did not feel like I fit into high school in general, let alone the band, and in hindsight may have been better off at a smaller school with a friendlier, less intimidating culture, I remember Mrs. Beasley coming up behind me as I was getting some water during a band rehearsal break, patting me on the back and saying, “Derek, you’ve come a long way since band camp.” Those were her exact words.
That little gesture made an extremely insecure black kid who was called “stupid” by other band members feel good, that someone cared about me when nobody else in the band did; at least, that’s how I felt at the time. That’s why I signed up for beginning orchestra to learn how to play the string bass during the Spring semester that year - I did it because of her and her friendly, supportive demeanor.
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