Editor’s Note: News Editor Hailey Vice spoke to middle school drama teacher Mr. Stan Ratoff about leaving ASL after decades of working here. What follows is an edited transcript of Mr. Ratoff’s thoughts on changes in the school that he has seen.
I’m retiring because I’ve been teaching for over thirty-five years at least, and I think it’s time for me to think about doing something else other than just teaching. I am a psychotherapist, and I have been having two jobs for many years. What I want to do now is focus on psychotherapy. So once I retire that is what I will be doing. Not full time, but part-time.
What I’ll take away with me is what I gave to the school. There were some things that made me feel good and at the same time allowed me to contribute to the school. One example was when I was in the Lower School. I created the lower school after school program from scratch and I ran it, and as time went on, it grew. It’s wonderful seeing something that you’ve created grow into something that is very much a part of ASL, and I feel very proud that I contributed to the school in that way.
When I moved to the middle school, they didn’t have a Student Council, so I created and organized one for several years. I see where it is now. That’s a memory.
But it’s things that I impacted on the students that I will remember. I contributed to the well-being of students. Those are the memories that I’m going to keep. For example, seeing a former student who’s now on Broadway. He was in my lower school class, and I helped him develop.
Over the years, I have seen many changes. Each change has had its own positive and negative parts and I think the beauty is that as each change grows you change with it. You miss things and at the same time, you see the benefits of the new change. But then you live with that change until you have another change. It’s an organic growth of the school. Those are memories.
It’s been really fun working here. The atmosphere, just the way the school is. The whole environment of the school is very welcoming and warming. Really, ASL is a wonderful place to be educated and to work in.
