Flowers For Doran

Mr. Doran was my AP English teacher at Kalani High School for two years. He's been teaching at the school for a long time. Like my relatives know people who had Doran a couple decades ago. The nickname "Dino-Doran" was for a reason.

A little over a week ago, I was shocked to hear that he had passed away. What? Doran was one of those people who you thought would be teaching for the rest of his life. He had become a teacher who helped define the experience at Kalani High and to hear that he had died was a real shock to everyone...

Last week, my sister (who helped Doran as a TA) and I decided to go to his classroom to lay flowers (some current students had started the idea). It's one thing to see the Facebook updates of Doran's passing, but it's quite another to go his classroom door, realizing that he is no longer here, and laying flowers...

Doran was one of the most memorable teachers I had. Who came to school dressed in aloha shirt, shorts, and running shoes? Doran. Who had nearly cryptic writing in class, to the point where you had to raise your hand and confirm what certain words said? Doran. Who told all the dirty jokes behind Shakespeare? Doran. Who made us carry around that brick of a textbook that couldn't fit in a backpack because it was too fat? Doran. In all his eccentricities, Doran really helped us become better writers. He exposed us to all kinds of texts, classical and contemporary, while using his vague feedback to force us to become better writers. MISS...Meaningful, Insightful, Significant, and Subtle. That was his mantra for good writing.

It was because of Doran that my first two years of English classes in college were incredibly easy, because I had already learned all the short stories and novels in his class. That big fat textbook that wouldn't fit into our backpacks...the one we always had to carry around for his class? That's where I learned about all that stuff.

Mr. Doran, thank you for dedicating your life to teaching. You were one of a kind, and Kalani won't ever be the same without you. While you are no longer here, I am happy that you were able to see your last class graduate before you passed on. They are going on to bigger and better things, thanks to your guidance.



P.S I used sentence variation, parenthetical phrases, and repetition in this blog post just for you :)