The Unlikely 1979 Teacher Who Left a Lasting Mark

In conversation with Phil Gardiner ’81 

It was the summer of 1979. In the fall, I would start my year as a junior at CA. Then English Department Chair Bob Gardiner was, unbeknownst to me at the time, “sweating bullets.” He was scheduled to teach Honors English to juniors in the fall, for which I had somehow qualified. Apparently, having his son in class made him very nervous. 

Lo and behold, the stars aligned in the form of a young English teacher looking for work. With an eclectic taste in literature, a penchant for photography, and a black belt in Karate, he was the antithesis of a traditional prep-school English teacher. What possessed my father to hire this man was probably both desperation and a belief, or better yet an intuitive “knowing,” that what this man had to offer would be good for me, for him, and possibly the school. 

Of course, a standard prep school curriculum was out of the question. Let’s see if I remember what we read in no particular order: Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday, Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Ken Kesey, No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Essays included “On Self-Respect” by Joan Didion in her anthology Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Erik Erickson’s “Identity, Youth and Crisis,” and Harry Stack Sullivan’s “Interpersonal Relationships and the Family.” I’m sure there were others. (Editor’s Note: How many readers recall even 20% of their freshman year reading?) 

Unbeknownst to me at the start of the year, he would become the best teacher I ever had. His curiosity about the human condition combined with an indomitable belief in his students’ capabilities, forged an enduring relationship with me and others in and out of the classroom. His name is Bill Laven. He and his wife, Christine, own and run Potrero Nuevo Farm in Northern CA.