Sotto Voce.

Small Pieces of Coherent Energy.

Richard Testa, Educator

Richard Testa lived in a nondescript small rambler located on a hill in downtown Santa Fe, New Mexico. In many ways, Richard was equally as disarming. Small and lean, balding, with a short salt-and pepper beard, it would be hard to tell what he did for a living. Judging from his worn flannel shirt, jeans, and work boots, you might have guessed he was an artist or a writer. You might be surprised when he told you he was a teacher. But when you listened to what Richard had to say, your life, like mine, might be completely changed.

Richard turned his house into a school because he wanted to create an alternative destination for people, like him, who wanted to escape the oppressions and constraints of traditional education. Richard was teaching in Kenya, driving all over Africa in a dilapidated VW van, when he came to believe that traditional education cause more harm than good. So he came back to the United States and opened The Tutorial School in his house as an alternative. Richard became a man on a mission of compassion. He would often quote Greek philosophers and Indian mystics with the voice of a New York cab driver, his blue eyes twinkling and his face wrinkling into a gleeful grin at the reactions to his pronouncements. The word “education,” he would say, comes from the Latin meaning “to draw out.” “School,” furthermore, comes from the Greek word for “leisure.” Richard loved helping his students get to the root of things. “Only with understanding,” he repeatedly admonished us, “can we attain real freedom.”

Richard's classroom was the largest room in the house, dominated by a simple plywood table and sagging old bookshelves crammed to overflowing with all kinds of books. A large picture window, with a cat perched on the ledge, filled the room with light and warmth. There, he would gather us together and we would explore whatever was on our minds, sometimes as a group, sometimes individually. Every now and then, something we discussed would remind him of a piece of ancient wisdom he once read, and he would hunt the bookshelves for the appropriate tome while the students' anticipation mounted. He would read the passage with his high voice cracking at the high points, finger stabbing the air, and for that moment we would feel like philosophers ourselves, connected in time to past thinkers who wrestled with the same problems as we did.

The door to Richard's home was always unlocked, literally and figuratively, and for that I will always be grateful. I learned a lot from him, and I am a better person for it. Being who he was, he would no doubt correct me for saying that. “Paul,” he would say, suggesting I had missed the point, “you're a better person not because I taught you, but because of what you learned on your own.” For once I'd have to say I can't entirely agree with Richard.

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