"All I've done is give you a book. You have to have the courage to learn what's inside it." My teacher, Freida Joy Riley by Homer Hickam June 2000 Since the book Rocket Boys, and the film based on it, October Sky, were released, Freida Joy Riley‹Miss Riley as we students knew her‹has taken on nearicon status across the nation and the world. Wherever I go, I am thanked by people in all walks of life, but especially by teachers, for telling her story because it is their story, too. At long last, they say, someone has written about a real school teacher, one who not only fought for her students, but insisted that they learn. It seems to me that it is the latter observation that is the most important. Miss Riley was a teacher who insisted that we, her students, had a duty to learn. In Rocket Boys, I quote Miss Riley as saying, "All I've done is give you a book. You have to have the courage to learn what's inside it." She was referring to an advanced text on rocket science requiring a knowledge of calculus and differential equations. I was having trouble with algebra at the time. Yet, she placed the challenge squarely on my shoulders. I had a duty to learn and I did. Miss Riley never had it easy during her life. Her father was a miner. Her house was plain and simple and there was never a lot of money around. Yet she loved life and she loved knowledge and her parents did everything necessary to see that she was well educated. When I first met Miss Riley in 1958, I was first struck by how young and pretty she was. In fact, she was only a few years older than most of her students. She was pert, brighteyed, freckles sprinkled across her nose, sleek black hair. I think all the boys in her class were just a little in love with her. I know I was. Let me make something clear, however. Miss Riley was a nononsense teacher. She came to class well prepared and she expected her students to be just as prepared. Although she was friendly and would engage us individually in conversation after class, she was our teacher first, and our friend a distant second. Miss Riley seemed to take an interest in me immediately, asking about my parents, asking me what I was interested in, wondering if my rockets might be a good idea for a science fair entry. That innocent remark would ultimately lead me to try my luck with the science fairs at the county, state, and national levels. I didn't do it for a scholarship. None of us boys did. There were no scholarships‹no matter what Hollywood showed‹but we won something far better, the knowledge that we could do anything we wanted to do, if only we were willing to work hard enough at it. We also did it to make our parents, our school, our state, our country, and especially our Miss Riley proud of us. Miss Riley paid attention to all her students, not just her Rocket Boys. She was fierce in her belief that going to school was the job of her students and, therefore, sacred. To work as hard as possible at a job was the West Virginian way. To do a poor job was simply not acceptable. When I got arrogant because of my rocket successes, or in trouble for my failures, she kept me on an even keel with just a few words of appropriate encouragement and a form of tough love. When she became sick with Hodgkin's disease, she didn't tell me about it. She taught me about it. It was considered very bad manners in West Virginia to ask anyone about any affliction they might have, physical or mental. The gossip spread around the school quickly enough, though, and she took an extra moment with me to teach me about her illness. She invited me to her desk after school and had me put my hand on the swollen lymph nodes in her neck. I can still feel the molten
heat of the awful thing inside her that would ultimately kill her. She asked for no pity, only understanding of what the disease was and how it worked. After I went off to college, I occasionally came back to see her. Once, she even let me teach one of her classes, just to see what I remembered. I was thankful that I remembered enough to gain her approval of my job. Thankfully, her Hodgkin's went into remission for some years. I last saw her a few weeks before I graduated from college. She was quite thin and looked very tired but her eyes lit up at the sight of me! She was so proud that I was going to graduate. She was also proud when I told her that I had decided to go into the army as an officer. She believed in our country and thought it right and proper that a young man would choose to go off and serve in the military. Miss Riley died while I was on military duty overseas. When I found out, I wished then that I had told her how much she meant to me. I am most happy that she lived long enough to see Neil Armstrong step on the moon. I trust she thought of her Rocket Boys when he did. There is one thing I think we all need to careful of when we think of Miss Riley. She was a real, living, fleshandblood human being, not an icon. Sometimes, if I listen, I can still hear her voice, patiently going over each chapter of our physics text, her careful pauses between her words, waiting for our questions, then her concise answers, and always her quick quips to anyone foolish enough to try to make a joke over what she considered serious business. She got tired and I know she got discouraged but she rarely let us see it. She was also a lover of life. It is clear in her history. She read extensively, she played the piano expertly, she loved her family, and she loved her students. She was always just one inch away from a smile and when she did smile, she could light up the darkest room. In very many ways, that smile now lights up this nation, and the world, with the hope that we may once again find our ways back to the old ways, the ways of duty and honor, the ways of our fathers and mothers, and our teachers. I encourage you to be tough, exacting, even in a way ruthless‹like our Miss Riley could be to ensure the education of our children. I believe there are still many Freida Joy Rileys out there who are doing the same, underappreciated job she did forty years ago and doing it just as well. Because of that, I believe our children are heading for the stars. When they get there, I believe they will do so with the names of their teachers on their lips. And it is right that they do so. "All I've done is give you a book. You have to have the courage to learn what's inside it." Thank you, Miss Riley. I found the courage because of you.