Jackson was loud. His low, raspy voice would wake you up as good as coffee. It must have done that with the students in his math classes. And his athletes at practice.
He could get the kids to listen. With his booming voice, he would coax them to the whiteboard where they would solve math problems that he lobbed at them. Can you imagine? Teenagers at the board. Standing in front of peers. Doing algebra for all to see.
He was the first teacher I met here after I decided to teach. While I was still an intern, he enthusiastically welcomed me into his room and showed me how it all worked. It was loud. He wrote on the board in big sweeping strokes, slamming the markers as the math streamed out. He would turn on a dime and spring questions on the kids to check their learning. And if necessary, he’d slow down or do it again. Years later, when I emailed him to let him know I was applying to Austin High for a math job, even his reply was loud: joyful and welcoming and loud.
Since I’ve been working here, he has been my permission slip to not overthink things. He has answered weekend texts. He has checked up on me during the day. He has been my exemplar on how to reach kids. The job was easy, he would say — easy if you focused on doing right by them. Which is what he did every single day. And now he’s gone.
We will miss him very, very much.