our love for him

 

Robert Bittle

I know an extraordinary person and teacher,

one who was born for the classroom,

who saw every student as an individual and of enormous worth,

he was gifted with both seeing them

and finding accessible paths they might wish to follow,

he helped countless students believe in themselves

and helped many of his colleagues rescue themselves

to help those students move forward,

his love for wife, kids, and grandkids,

completed him,

Robert has many gifts:

a wicked sense of humor,

who else would be born on April 1?

his clever mind can take the most mundane

and twist it to reveal the hilarity within,

though he could also be outrageous enough

to get a book thrown at him by the clerk of a meeting,

nothing ever gets by Robert:

when we are as fools,

he doesn't suffer that foolishness gladly,

when challenged by the gifts and needs of our nine year old son,

he improvised and found how to both support 

and to challenge Aaron in math,

Robert and I both taught American history in middle school,

and I was both excited and challenged

by his innovative ideas to create games

that were like the proverbial "spoonful of sugar"

to help get the student involved 

with people, place, events, themselves,

to explore the consequences of decisions

so that the past and present speak clearly to us

of how we might find the future we want,

social studies the discipline he most believed in,

just as how he was with challenging students,

so did we who worked with him

need to work to get to know him, to appreciate him,

Robert and authority never were friends, 

his sense of rightness bristled at authority,

Robert challenged Carolina Friends School as a student,

and I am glad we were enough like Robert to see the gem below his crust,

music has long been how the universe and he soar together,

for the guitar and music friends allowed him to transcend

into word and melody brilliance,

letting his creative soul blossom and shout,

as health challenges worked to hold him back

from much of who he is,

the guitar too much for him,

and then the dobro, too,

he left the school and thus much of who he is,

I wish we as a school had been able to let him know

that as an educator Robert is of the best

that any school can hope for:

Robert saw the students, loved the students,

and made the world a better place

because of who he was and what he did,

 the cruelty of the disease besetting him

should not distract us and him

from who he has been at his best,

his grandchildren know they are of the center,

from his love of them

just as he is of the center,

from our love for him.

by Henry H. Walker

February 9, ‘26