Arduous Arguments

As a young man, Phil Holmes ‘63 rose to the challenge of impressing USC’s toughest English professor. Holmes went on to become an exacting and esteemed English instructor himself. Then at age 60, he rose to another challenge: Give up a four-decade teaching post at a cushy private school to teach South Los Angeles teens how to write.

Growing up in San Gabriel, Holmes had no interest in reading or writing. “I really loved geometry because of the logic of it,” he says. “It appealed to my hopelessly linear mind.”

He was a hot-shot catcher who trained with the Dodgers and went to USC to play ball. But his baseball career ended his freshman year with a rotator-cuff injury.

Holmes found himself striking out in composition class, too. His professor was the legendary Ronald Freeman. “The first essay I wrote for him, he just put a slash through it and he wrote, ‘So what?’ “ Holmes recalls. “He said to give it an F would have dignified it.”

The feedback ignited Holmes’ competitive spirit, and he worked hard to master the class objective: using precise language to develop a strong thesis and a clear argument. A Phi Kappa Psi fraternity brother, Holmes sat with his dictionary for hours, hunting for exactly the right words.

“It just became intellectually fun,” he says. “I loved laboring over the logic. It’s that geometry thing!” By his fourth essay, he had earned a C. By his last, an A. “That was a huge turning point in my life,” says Holmes, who loves to quote Freeman and the other USC instructors – including Frank Baxter, Wilbur Long and J. Wesley Robb – who inspired his love of careful thinking and writing. “You never forget these people. You learn something from them and you just never forget it.”

After earning a master’s in English from Duke University, Holmes was hired to teach English at Los Angeles’ private Harvard School for Boys. Known for being tough on his students – much as professor Freeman was to him – Holmes spent 40 years there mentoring what he calls “the best students in the country,” and helping them write their way into the nation’s top universities.

But in 2003, he made a move that was surprisingly ... nonlinear. He accepted a teaching post at View Park Preparatory High School on Crenshaw Boulevard in South Los Angeles.

“I couldn’t resist it because it was part of a building process,” he says. “It was a challenge again!”

A public charter school with a high percentage of low-income families, View Park forced Holmes to change his teaching strategies. “I didn’t realize how far behind they were,” he says.

They do more reading aloud together, and the lessons take longer. But the goals are the same – and so are the results. Holmes’ View Park students, some of whom have siblings in prison, have gone on to schools such as Stanford and UC Berkeley. Holmes says his best moments at View Park have been “the days the students have made a breakthrough and I’ve been there to watch it.”

These days, Holmes spends most of his time training View Park’s fellow teachers and developing curricula for the English and history departments. And he’s still tough on his students. “I tell them: ‘I’ll come down hard on anyone who gives me a thoughtless answer to a thoughtful question. I’m not here to blow up self-esteem but to test character.’

“What gives you self-esteem is when you really feel – and know – that you have grown.”

 – Starshine Roshell