One of my favorite teachers from high school, Scott Alexander, has died. Here is his obituary and here is the funeral home guestbook for him. This is what I wrote for it:

Plenty of people have already mentioned what a great teacher and person Scott Alexander was, to which I can personally attest. As a student of his at Fairview, all I would add is that what in my mind set him apart even from the other excellent teachers, and what probably made him under-appreciated at the time, was the fact that he was not content to merely carve out a niche at the school and cultivate a personal teacher cult. He got IB teacher certification at a school (Boulder H.S.) that didn’t even have an IB program, and later, at Fairview, it was mostly his personal willpower that kept the IB program going for virtually the entire time I was there. Then, as I understand it, he turned around the middle school at Boulder Country Day, which had been struggling up to that point, and by all accounts turned it into a roaring success.

Probably most of his students were never fully aware of all of this thankless administrative work that he undertook and that made everything else possible. On the other hand, maybe that is in part also a tribute to his gift for and love of teaching, which rendered all the effort invisible and made everything seem as it should be. Fortunately, from what I saw at the March 1 dedication ceremony of the middle school named after him, I think in the end the entirety of his accomplishment was finally properly appreciated. I hope that is a comfort to all of his family and friends.