Those of you who were lucky enough to have Mr. Maurice Loontjens for 6th grade at Woodridge Elementary in Cranston… Mr. Loo has passed on to that great Principal’s Office in the Sky. ProJo tells it: Town manager dies in his sleep.
Whether he was dumping your desk out on the floor because it was dirty, or leading your class in a riveting game of kickball, Mr. Loo was one hell of a teacher. His fondness for Buddha was known from Friendly’s to Santilli’s.
I remember for punishment me and some of my cohorts went outside with Mr. Loo and he had us measure all the crack’s in the playground’s blacktop, saying the school needed to figure out exactly how much blacktop to buy to fill in the cracks. In demonstrating physical vs chemical changes he smashed a Woodridge Wizards mug and burned a piece of paper in class! 6th graders, smashing mugs, burning paper, the lesson stuck.
Here’s to you Mr. Loo! School’s out for summer, school’s out forever.
Books
Planned books:
- Prodigal Son (Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein, Book 1) by Dean Koontz
- City of Night (Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein, Book 2) by Dean Koontz
- The Confusion (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 2) by Neal Stephenson
- The System of the World (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 3) by Neal Stephenson
- William Shakespeare: The Complete Works, Deluxe Edition by William Shakespeare
Current books:
-
Lucifer’s Hammer by Larry Niven
Recent books:
- Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet by Katie Hafner
- Playing For Pizza: A Novel by John Grisham
- Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut
- Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut
- Running with Scissors: A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs
It was the second half of the 1973-1974 school year. I was a very scared student teacher who had to say the least, had not had favorable rapport with my first cooperating teacher. My advisor at RIC said do I ever have a placement for you. It was Maury Loontjens at Woodridge. The man was an inspiration to the lives of every student he touched, including me. It was obvious that there was no one more dedicated to his profession, and he truly loved and cared about each child, regardless of their circumstances. I obviously learned a lot about teaching from Maury, as I went on to teach at not only at the elememtary level, but also in middle schools and at the college level. If any students from that era read this, hey guys, I still have all the pictures from that year, and I would be happy to share them with you. Please feel to contact me, I remember most of you, and I will never forget Maury Loontjens.
Karl Peterson
karl.peterson1@comcast.net