The Student Has Become the Master

During the few years of teaching at my previous school, I had the privilege of teaching a very talented young man. This young man, who is now filming a television show in which he has a starring role, has been in several feature films and it is quite possible you have seen him in something before. In the years I taught him, I really did not teach him much because by that time, he had been in both feature films and Broadway shows. However, in an effort to look good in front of my new students, and when it was relevant, I tried to casually imply a positive correlation between my teaching and being famous:

F: "Hey, have you ever seen that movie _____ ? It's Awesome!"
Mr. F: "Actually, I taught one of the stars in that movie. Remember the character _____ ? He was a student of mine."
F: "Wow! That's awesome! And he was in that TV show ______ too!"
Mr. F: "Yeah, and he was in my band. No big deal."

(Pause)

K: "So wait, doesn't that mean your students are like, more successful than you are? That kinda sucks."

Yeah, it kinda does.

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Band Teacher

In the same day, I found these two notes in instrument cases. They were left for future instrumentalists to discover, but only well after the identity of the authors could ever be discovered. In a way, they each contain the same gospel, though one speaks of fire and brimstone and the other of love and compassion...

"Dear L:

Treat this clarinet well, and I will reward you!
Love,
God"

"You better take care of this sax! If you break it, I will hunt you down and kill you. (Don't be the next H and show this to Mr. V.)
from,
Jesus"

Both the clarinet and saxophone were and still are broken.

Why so serious?

A revelation

(After listening to "Fanfare for the Common Man"):

S: "Are we going to play this song!? It was totally awesome!"
Mr. F (brief transition from chuckling to out-loud laughter): "No! This piece, not song, is way too hard for us."
A: "Hey! Did you just laugh?"
Mr. F: I'm sorry, I didn't mean to laugh at you, it's just that this is a really hard piece of music..."
A: "No I don't care about that. We've just never heard you laugh before."