James Nikopoulos

Mr. Sassenberg. 11th grade English. You’ve probably encountered a version of a Mr. Sassenberg in a film or novel. He filled his classroom with props and transformed his lesson plans into performances. When we got to Romanticism, he lined the walls in forest green and dragged in a three-foot tree stump. Whenever we said something mediocre, he would pose on top of that stump as Rodin’s Thinker, begging us to make him reconsider what we’d said. Once, he plotted with my friend in class to set-up an over-the-top altercation about a homework assignment – the kind of over-the-top performance that had my friend turning over his desk and storming out of the room – just so as to dramatize our SAT word of the day (it was ‘irate’). But it’s not just that he was theatrical; it’s that he cared so much and went to great lengths to encourage potential. He also understood – in ways few teachers I ever had did – that a student’s attitude and failed assignments are not indicative of essential character traits. He taught me not just to imbue my lessons with passion and caring, but to never write off a student who might not respond to my pedagogy as I would have liked.