InshallahWallahYallah, Farewell, Mr. John

InshallahWallahYallah

Farewell, Mr. John A Former Student Reflects on John Leistler’s 14 Years at King’s

BY JOHANNA LEE ’13

T

he first time Director of Human Resources and General Administration Mona Sami sat in a class of John Leistler’s, she did so from the floor. The AP Art History class was full that day with parents and advisors who were welcomed to sit in on classes with their children and advisees. It seemed every student had brought someone with them that day, adults crowding side by side across the floor and pressed along the walls. From 14

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her vantage point in the corner, Sami was enraptured. “I got up out of that class with tears in my eyes,” she told me. “The teaching and the interaction I saw in that class made me think if that had been a high school class for everybody, nobody would have not loved their high school education.”

I was a student in that very same class. The first day of the course, we already had a homework assignment: look through the textbook and select one artwork which you are excited to

learn about, and one artwork which you are not. In class, Mr. John posed a challenge to us: while he could not promise that we would come to love or even like the artwork that we were not excited to study, he was certain that by the end of the year, we would come to respect the work and its place within the canon of art history.

This is the Mr. John that any former student will recognize: the educator who not only inspires open-minded curiosity in his students, but also

curiosity rooted in compassion for the subjects of study and the process of learning. Faculty Assistant Hamzeh AlQudah ’10 recalled his lesson in selfcompassion: “I remember talking to Mr. John about a test on which I didn’t do so well despite the fact that I did my best.

He then said something that I’ll always remember: ‘If doing your best isn’t enough, that’s how you know you have more to learn.’ This shifted my focus from being frustrated to being curious about what I need to learn next.”

Mr. John joined King’s Academy in 2007, its first year. Invited by founding Headmaster Dr. Eric Widmer to serve as the first head of the Department of History and Social Studies, Mr. John moved to what was at the time a very different school: no grass, no trees and of course, no students. The skeletal campus held the promise — and the challenge — of creating a community from scratch. While all inaugural employees faced this trial, Mr. John was tasked with the unique issue of creating a history program in an academic culture that prizes sciences over humanities.

“People told John, ‘You’re going to have a very rough job selling history in the Middle East, because people want to become engineers and doctors and they want math and science,’” Dean of the Faculty Lilli Audeh explained. “He managed to change that. He changed the culture of what history is at King’s.

Students went on to study liberal arts because of John. He managed to change the mindset of people.”

Over his tenure at King’s, Mr. John has worn many hats — accessorizing his scores of neckties, which he matches to the day’s subject matter in his classes. In 2011, he was appointed dean of curriculum and instruction. The following year, he was designated as dean of the faculty. Last year, he took on the role of assistant head of school for teaching and learning. Throughout these appointments, Mr. John has continued to make space for teaching: from bringing the two -year AP Capstone course to King’s, to embracing the discussion-oriented Harkness Method, to filling in AP Literature courses — not his area of training — when a midyear emergency called the original teacher away from school.

“He came into every situation with passion and excitement and positivity that was infectious,” said Dina Kuttab ’17, an alumna of the AP Capstone Seminar and Research course and a former advisee of Mr. John. “This was especially true when it came to his classes because he truly loves the process of teaching and learning in general and the topics that he teaches about in specific.”

Mr. John instilled within us, both students and King’s Academy as a whole, the courage to seek better learning and growth.

- Hamzeh Al Qudah '10, former student and advisee of Mr. John and current faculty assistant at King's Academy

Mr. John’s inspiration is not limited to the classroom. For him, every moment can be a teachable one. Among Sami’s treasured memories of Mr. John is the career fairs they attended. “There would be times that we’d interview candidates and it’s very obvious that they’re not going to be a good fit at King’s. Then what’s on his schedule the next day? An appointment with exactly that candidate! John would say, ‘Well you know, they’re young and everyone deserves to know what they can do better in an interview next time.’”

Mr. John has shaped who I am as a human being and scholar.

He taught me what it means to be curious about the way the world was, is, and could be. He also showed me the importance of human connection in school and work, and what it means to put our love and support for other people above our day-today work.

- Dina Kuttab ’17

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For the candidates that ended up joining King’s, they found a source of professional development, support and mentorship in Mr. John. “Outside of working with students in the classroom, I would say that John’s biggest impact on the school has been the ongoing professional development of the faculty,” said Lilli. She told me that his selflessness with his time — developing and refining the faculty appraisal process, leading art museum tours for colleagues and alumni while on career fair trips, designing and leading a training curriculum for teaching fellows — is a reflection of his genuine passion and love for education. “You have to understand that John doesn’t put on a show — he really, really enjoys what he does,” she said.

Mr. John was the one who saw potential in me to become a teacher and he was the one who recruited me. I would not be where I am today as an educator without Mr. John's guidance and support in my life. Simply put, Mr. John is the teacher I hope every student gets to have at least once in their lifetime.

- Ghassan Gammoh ’10, former student and advisee of Mr. John and King’s Academy faculty member from 2014– 2020.

One of Mr. John’s greatest strengths as an educator is his encouragement to revisit: to return to a subject, issue or question at a later point with a new perspective born by intervening learning and reflection. On the final day of my AP Art History course, Mr. John distributed our homework assignments from the first day. He asked us to revisit the artworks we had selected: had our perspective changed? Could we now place the artwork within the canon of history and recognize its significance?

In what ways has our thinking about 16

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art, beauty and expression changed over the last eight months? One of the artworks central to the course is the German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich’s “Wanderer above the Sea of Fog” (c. 1818). We see a man standing on a craggy precipice, overlooking a cloudy vista punctuated by mountain peaks. With his back facing the viewer, he invites the viewers to step into his shoes and take his place: to feel the breathless exhilaration of summiting, of conquering limitations physical, mental, and spiritual to reach new heights. And yet, even from our view at the top, we can see taller mountains in the distance — reminding us that always there is another peak, another apex to reach and beckoning us to once again set forth.

Mr. John, as you reflect on your time at King’s, we hope you can look back upon all the summits you have reached,

Mr. John is a fundamental part of King's. That said, I know that wherever he goes, a big part of him will still be a Lion at heart — he has said so himself so many times.

- Dario Pomar ’19, former student

and those you have helped students, colleagues and friends to reach as well.

As you look out on this next adventure as the Wallace Wilson Visiting Scholar Fellow at Deerfield Academy, may your “Return from Bohemia” be one of upward momentum, joy and open to revisitation.