leonard mendelsohn
taught children’s literature and studied stories
was a popular teacher, a small jewish Montrealer
who loved telling and tales

when i took his undergrad class at concordia u in 1983
he told us
on our first day
that half our grade would be based on our final exam
which we were required not to take
but to write
to create quality multiple choice questions and essay questions
and we could hand our exam in to him as many times as we wanted over the semester
and each time he would critique and mark it
and hand it back to us
and we could keep the highest mark we got

wonderful
fabulous pedagogy

he taught me and my classmates another great lesson one day in class
when he was telling a ghost story
from his own life
having lived for years in Maine with the last remaining elderly Shaker virgins
and studied their strong spiritualist lore
and there with Sister Delia or some other mistress of jesus
had encountered an embodied mystery
possibly a ghost
and he was telling us about it
in this funny but serious and intense way
until as we listened
enthrallled
he suddenly stopped in mid-sentence
and said pointedly “I want each of you to very slowly turn and look around at each other”
and we did
and we saw a roomful of bodies perched urgently forward
each of us on the asslip our seat
eyes wide
hair up on every neck
and we each realized that we had all been lost in his words
and he asked us:
“Why?
“What is going on here?”
“Look at you, consumed in my tale. How? What is happening to you?”
And that’s a question that has nourished me for twenty years now.
“What is it that happens when a story is told?”
“What kind of magic is that?”

So thanks Leonard
you were a fine teacher
and, i hope, still are