♪ RICHARD CARDILLO: I literally lived inside the building where I taught.

And inside that building, I lost a little chunk of my soul.

ROSANNA SALCEDO: And then on 110th Street, the bus turns down Fifth Avenue.

By that point, I felt like I was in a different world.

JIM STAHL: There was a noise at the back of the room.

And I did spin my head too quickly.

And suddenly I see my eye bouncing on the desk!

(laughter) THERESA OKOKON: Tonight's theme is "Lost and Found."

ANNOUNCER: This program is made possible in part by contributions from viewers like you.

Thank you.

OKOKON: Is there anything worse than the feeling when you realized that you have lost something?

It could be your cell phone, your inspiration, or a loved one, maybe.

And at the same time, there's almost nothing that is better than the feeling when you realize that you have found something that was previously lost.

Because really, in this life, being lost or being found is two sides of the same coin.

♪ CARDILLO: My name is Richard Cardillo.

I am an educator for the last 35 years of my life, mostly classroom education on two different continents.

I taught for ten years in Peru.

And one of my main jobs now is, I work in large urban school districts, trying to rewrite discipline codes so that there's not as much inequity and disproportionality of students that are getting suspended.

OKOKON: So what have you discovered about yourself through your storytelling?

CARDILLO: It came in stages through storytelling.

The first thing was, "I can't believe I shared those things in front of an audience."

These are things that I've never said out loud before.

But right after that was the idea of increased empathy, which is what I wanted.

I wanted to be able to tell stories and learn that we are similar in so many different ways in a world that is so polar right now, it's so divided.

I wanted to be able to learn about myself and then learn about others that there's a commonality.

OKOKON: So what are some ways that you have evolved as a storyteller?

CARDILLO: My storytelling has been fed an awful lot more recently with heavy doses of listening.

OKOKON: Mm-hmm.

CARDILLO: And it's so funny that people will see me show up and...

There's a circuit of storytellers now.

And they'll see me show up for a slam or an event and say, "You got one for tonight?"

And I always use the same line when I don't have one-- I always say, "Tonight, I'm a learner."

And that's what I want to remain.

For the first five years of my teaching career, I literally lived inside the building where I taught.

And inside that building, I lost a little chunk of my soul.

The building was in Harlem, on the corner of 124th and Lenox, an all-boys Catholic school.

The monastery was on the third floor.

My classroom was on the top floor, the seventh floor, and I'd frequently go up there before morning prayer to try to learn about this teaching thing, of which I did not have a clue.

And I was scared.

At the tender age of 16, I became a monk in a Catholic monastery of religious teaching brothers and took a vow of celibacy.

I know.

(laughter) The order that I joined was known and notorious for being draconian in their discipline and using corporal punishment.

So I had to learn from these old guys who were used to beating kids.

One of the brothers came up to me, an older brother, and he said, "Don't ever forget-- don't smile until Christmas.

To hell with that-- don't smile ever."

The second brother came up to me, he said, "You must learn to treat every one of the students "as if they're your enemy.

Because they are."

(laughter) Third brother came up to me, he said, "Don't you ever apologize "for making a mistake with a student.

They can't know you make mistakes."

So those were the nuggets I put in my bag of tricks to learn how to be a teacher.

None of it resonated with me, none of it felt good, but I was afraid.

And I had to follow God's way, which was the older brothers' way.

Probably the student that put up with my tough-guy-teacher image the most in that first year of teaching was a freshman by the name of Gil.

Gil was this freshman who was 250 pounds.

I mean, he was enormous, he was huge.

He had this backpack that would spit out papers as he waddled by all the time.

Just amazing to see.

And he was late every day for class.

And he knew the rules in my class.

I was so strict, I made this sign over my door that said, "Lateness equals rudeness."

And if a student came in late, I'd point to the sign, point to the stairs, and send them down for a late slip and a detention.

Gil would trudge up sweating, just filled with all of this angst, and he'd be inches away from the door, and I'd go, "Click," and I'd shut the door in his face.

And the wailing would start, "No, Brother, please!

"Please don't send me down, please!

I don't want to walk back..." And I'd point to the sign, and I'd point to the stairs, and he'd go crying down those seven flights of stairs, get his late slip, come back up to my classroom, where he'd miss the whole first period.

And this went on for a good long time.

At the end of the first marking period, I went to him, and I said, "Gil, you're failing.

I got to call in your mother."

And the wailing started again-- "Brother, please, "leave my mother out of it.

Don't call her up, don't call her up!"

And I said, "I got to."

He said, "I promise you, I'll get better.

I will change."

I said, "You've been promising me to change, "you've been promising me to get better, and you're not doing either."

He said, "I promise you I will get better.

But can't I get better just a little bit at a time?"

And my heart softened.

But I still called his mother.

Came in, and I'm yelling at her like the tough-guy teacher again.

"What's up with you?

"Get your kid out of the door in the morning.

"How come he can't get here on time?

It's your respons..." and she starts the crying, too.

And she says, "Listen, Brother, this won't happen come Monday.

"I'll see my boss today.

"He can dock me the pay, but I am not going to have him come late ever again."

And I didn't know what she was talking about.

So I said, "Could you explain?"

She said, "I leave the house every morning "at quarter to six.

"Gil is responsible for getting up his two little sisters, "taking one to day care, taking the other one to second grade, and then he has to get to his classes."

And I was just so embarrassed.

And my jaw dropped.

And I realized Gil wasn't coming late to school because of his weight.

Gil was coming to school late because he was taking care of his family.

That's when I made the decision I had to lose this tough-guy teacher thing and get on.

I had to become that kind of a teacher that listened to student voice.

I had to become that kind of a teacher that practiced empathy.

I had to become that kind of a teacher that knows the most important thing is to know that every student has a story.

And my main responsibility is to listen to that story.

And I had to become that teacher that apologized for mistakes that I made.

That day I started finding a little bit more of my soul.

About 12 years after that, I left the monastery to live my authentic life, and-- I decided to stay in education, though.

I wanted to be a teacher still.

And I had this idea that I wanted to help with social-emotional learning now, to get in touch with kids' hearts.

I, more than anything, wanted to make amends for my past.

And I had this idea-- I wanted to find Gil and apologize.

So I said, "I'm going to do it."

I remembered where his mom lived, in the projects on 129th and Lenox.

And sure enough, she still was there.

I look her up, and she told me exactly where to find Gil.

Gil was in his ninth year of a ten-year prison sentence at Woodbourne Correctional Facility.

He got caught up in the draconian and stupid Rockefeller drug laws, and was pulled in for selling this small quantity of pot.

I get up to Woodbourne to visit him.

We had a great visit.

He shared, I shared.

We listened to each other.

He told me how he's just really anxious to get out of prison finally, with his wife.

He had a job waiting.

He could take care of his baby daughter now.

And it just felt so good.

And I shared with him, "Gil, the main reason that I came back "was to make amends-- I owe you a great apology.

"I am so sorry for the way that I treated you all those years ago."

And he looked at me and he said, "You know, "no harm done-- don't worry about it.

"You were the most stabilizing influence in my life "at the time.

So for me, you're as good as gold, Brother Cardillo."

And I said, "I'm going to correct you.

"It's not Brother Cardillo now-- it's Mr. Cardillo.

You can call me Richard."

And a glint in his eye.

And he had a smirk on his face.

And he gave me a piece of advice based on the plea that he made decades ago.

And he said, "Listen, Mr. Richard Cardillo, "I am all on your side for becoming a better teacher "and a better person.

"But don't you ever forget you can get better just a little bit at a time."

(laughter) Thank you.

(cheers and applause) SALCEDO: My name is Rosanna Maria Salcedo.

I'm one of the deans at the Cambridge School of Weston, the dean of equity and inclusion.

And I've been an educator for 20 years, working mostly in independent schools.

I was born in the United States, I have two children, two boys, they're 20 and 14.

So being a mom is also a really important part of my life.

OKOKON: And I understand that you write poetry, and you paint, and you're also writing a memoir.

SALCEDO: I am, yes.

It's not something that I've ever felt like I could pursue professionally, full-time, but in my personal life, art has always been...

It's just been a huge part.

Storytelling is actually a new thing for me, but I feel like I've written so much that I have a lot of great material to share.

OKOKON: So as an educator, I imagine you're pretty used to talking in front of groups.

So I'm guessing for storytelling, stage fright isn't what gets you.

What do you find to be the most challenging in this process?

SALCEDO: I think what's challenging is, I like talking, but I'm an academic primarily, right?

So I'm not an actor.

And I feel a little self-conscious about how I move my body, how I carry myself onstage.

And I don't consider myself a particularly funny person.

And oftentimes storytellers do include humor.

So there's just a level of self-consciousness about performing the story.

Both of my parents immigrated from the Dominican Republic to New York City in the 1960s after the Trujillo dictatorship, when they were in their teens.

They came independently of each other, neither of them having received much formal education.

My mother became a factory worker in a sweatshop on Delancey Street.

My father was a physical laborer.

Eventually they met and married, and they had this sweet girl two years later.

When I was three, and my father was 25, my family got its first big break.

My father knew someone who knew someone who knew a landlord who needed a superintendent for his building on 187th Street and Cabrini Boulevard in Washington Heights, New York City.

My father went to talk to the landlord.

The landlord explained that the superintendent would be responsible for making sure that the building always had heat and hot water, for fixing things when they were broken, for removing trash from the building several times a week, and keeping the building clean.

In return, the super and his family would be allowed to live in a windowless two-bedroom apartment in the basement, rent-free, and would receive a modest salary.

My father was thrilled.

He eagerly accepted the position.

This would allow us to live in a more affluent neighborhood than we could afford, it would allow me and my brothers to attend a better public school, and it would allow my mother to be a stay-at-home mom.

To subsidize my father's salary, my mother would often clean apartments in the building after he came home from work.

One of the women for whom she cleaned was Edith Masabav.

She was an elderly Jewish woman who lived directly above us on the first floor, and she got to know us really well.

The windows to Edith's apartment overlooked the front of the building.

And in good weather, when my brothers and I played on the sidewalk, Edith would sit by her kitchen window and watch us playing for hours.

Eventually she would reach out, wave, and call out, "Hi, Rosie, hi, Angel."

And we would stop what we were doing and smile and wave back, but we couldn't really communicate, because we didn't speak much English.

Edith told my mother that she would be willing to meet with me on a regular basis to help improve my English-language skills in preparation for school.

My mother gratefully accepted the offer.

I began to meet with Edith twice a week in her kitchen.

At first, the meetings were awkward.

Edith was so much older than me, and everything about Edith was different.

I was most struck by how utterly alone she lived.

In contrast, I lived with my parents and my siblings.

My abuela lived two or three blocks away, and I saw her every weekend.

And my tios and primos and tias also lived in the neighborhood.

My house was always full of people.

But I thought, "Edith must be somebody's abuela, "and she's sweet and kind and gentle, and always has cookies for me when we have our sessions."

By the time kindergarten came around, I was ready.

I was confident.

One holiday, Edith asked my mother if she could take me to the theater.

And my mother said yes.

I was so excited.

That Saturday, I put on my best Sunday clothes, my white tights and patent leather shoes.

and when Edith came to get me, I saw that she was also wearing her fancy clothes.

And she took me by the hand, and we walked down to the bus stop on Fort Washington Avenue to wait for the number four bus.

The number four bus travels from the northern tip of Manhattan all the way down to Midtown.

When the bus came and we boarded the bus, and I was able to get a window seat.

And from there I could see the neighborhood's transition from Washington Heights to Harlem.

And then at 110th Street, the bus turns and curls around the east side of Central Park, continuing its trajectory down Fifth Avenue.

By that point, I felt like I was in a different world.

I was most impressed by the structures-- buildings like the Guggenheim and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

This was a part of New York I had not yet seen.

At some point during the bus ride, Edith asked, "Rosie, are you hungry?"

And I nodded yes.

She said, "Do you want a bagel?"

And I said, "What's a bagel?"

(laughter) And everyone erupted in laughter.

We got off on 54th Street and walked a couple of blocks to the Ziegfeld Theater.

The Ziegfeld is an old New York theater, all red velvet and shiny brass.

It was definitely the fanciest place I have ever been.

Edith bought exotic snacks for me called Raisinets.

(laughter) And we took our seats.

As it turns out, we were going to watch a viewing of Disney's "Fantasia."

You can imagine my childhood delight when I saw Mickey as big as life on the giant screen.

This was also my introduction to classical music.

It was one of the most memorable moments of my life.

As I got older and I progressed in school, and I made new friends, my friendship with Edith became less and less important.

We didn't have our regular sessions anymore.

It wasn't necessary.

I was actually excelling in school.

One day, when I came home from school-- I was in junior high school at the time-- I came home and my mother was really, really upset.

She told me that Edith had passed away.

My parents hadn't seen or heard her for a while, and when they went to check on her, they found her.

As it turns out, Edith did have a daughter, on the West Coast, and my father knew how to contact her.

When Edith's daughter came to take care of her mother's remains, my family and I went to pay our respects.

We went up to the apartment and knocked on the door.

When she opened the door, she looked at me and said, "You must be Rosie-- I know all about you."

She welcomed us inside, and we sat with her for a while.

At some point, she asked me to accompany her to Edith's bedroom, and she led me to Edith's dresser.

On top of Edith's dresser was a number of framed pictures of me at different stages in my life.

Me on a tricycle, my first-grade class picture with my front teeth missing, me during my first Holy Communion.

I always understood the impact that Edith had had on my life.

But until that moment, I had never really thought about the impact that I may have had on hers.

Thank you.

(applause) STAHL: My name is Jim Stahl.

I live in Jamestown, Rhode Island, which is a bit south of Providence.

I spent most of my career publishing young people in a magazine that I started with my wife and several friends from graduate school called "Merlin's Pen."

And I've been writing my own stories for about five or six... seven years.

OKOKON: So can you tell me a bit about the transition from being a publisher to telling your own stories, and what you found challenging in that process?

STAHL: Editing itself is more like coaching.

So, and that one can learn by reading thousands and thousands of manuscripts.

And you have to learn.

But when I decided to start writing my own stories, I began signing up for classes in personal narrative.

And even though I had been an editor for almost two decades, I began to see that storytelling process, that writing process, from the inside.

One of the important lessons I had to keep learning in storytelling is that you have to earn your endings.

Because I'm drawn to the big endings, which sometimes, they say, seem to be pulled out of the air.

But no, in fact, the ending of a story has to grow organically right out of the action and the details... OKOKON: Sure.

STAHL: ...that lead up to it.

And so my writing coach was constantly saying, "Jim, you haven't earned this ending."

OKOKON: (laughs) STAHL: In 1969, it seemed like everybody was making bombs.

Remember the P.L.O.?

The SDS?

The I.R.A.?

The S.L.A.?

The F.A.R.C.?

Still don't know what that stood for.

The BPP.

In 1969, it seemed like if you had initials, you had a bomb.

And I was 13, a little delinquent.

I watched a lot of television.

And I wanted my own.

So I made my bomb from an M80 firecracker and a scale model of the Saturn V rocket.

That's the one that took the Apollo 11 astronauts to the moon in 1969.

Now, in Miami, M80s were outlawed, because four of them have the same explosive kick as a stick of dynamite.

So I had, in effect, taped-- Scotch-taped-- a quarter-stick of dynamite to the inside of a toy.

Well, I lit the fuse, and I waited to see what would happen next.

The sparkle and color of the lit fuse in my hand looked like nothing I'd seen on television.

The sparkle-- it looked and sounded and felt like confetti being blown out of a straw.

And I was mesmerized.

And before I know it, bang!

I am momentarily deaf in both ears.

And forever blinded in my left eye.

(audience members gasp) Now, almost blinded in my right.

Now, had both eyes been hit... Because a piece of shrapnel from the lunar landing module at the top of the rocket hit the bone just beneath my right eye.

Now, admittedly, had both eyes been hit, my life would have changed in that moment.

But as it turns out, what I've seen with one eye since age 13 are pretty much the same things you've seen with two.

So an artificial eye was made for me.

But there was a problem, because it didn't exactly fit.

It looked in directions I didn't ask it to look.

(laughter) And if I rubbed my lid too hard, or moved my head too quickly one way or the other, it wanted... it threatened... it wanted to fall out.

Because in order to stay in place, it needed suction.

A week after getting my brand-new eye, in Mrs. Garcia's eighth-grade Spanish class, it lost its suction.

(audience groans) There was a noise at the back of the room, and I did spin my head too quickly, and suddenly I see my eye bouncing on the desk!

(laughter) But I need to tell you, artificial eyes are not round, like a ball.

They're actually shaped like tiny pancakes.

And they're concave, like a contact lens.

But they bounce.

And mine hits my desk, and it bounces into the air, and it does a kind of shimmy at the top of its arc.

Right next to Linda Schwartz.

(laughter) And Linda's hair was soft.

(laughter) And blonde.

And it smelled like cookies.

(laughter) And all I wanted in the eighth grade was to touch it.

And when I began my lunge to get back the eye, Linda's hair was still before me.

But every other head in class is spinning in my direction.

And now maybe, in that split second before my dive, maybe my peers mistook what they saw now in flight for something else.

Maybe, you know, in spite of my eye's beautiful blue, hand-painted iris... (laughter) Maybe they thought they saw a ball bouncing, or an eraser.

Or maybe a retainer, because retainers were always falling out of mouths in the eighth grade.

(laughter) Well, after the second, but before the third bounce, I, in my Boston Red Sox jersey, am sliding up the aisle, and the bastard eye is out of sight-- cloaked in my palm.

In Fenway Park, Carl Yastrzemski made catches like that.

(laughter) But his diving snags, sometimes just yards before the Green Monster, his snags-- broad shoulders, strong arms on the grass-- his snags were always followed by the raising of the glove to display the orb like a prize!

You know, so the umps and the fans would know the truth of the catch.

The truth in my hand could not be shown.

Not in its nakedness.

Not even for its beautiful blue, hand-painted iris.

Nevertheless, I think I know something now that I was just about to begin learning after that catch.

Carl Yastrzemski had nothing on me.

Thank you.

(cheers and applause) I think it's good for people to see that we can experience these challenges as kids, and we come through them.

And I like sharing that.

And I think anyone who hears my stories has their own... their own stories of the same kind of redemption and growth.

ANNOUNCER: This program is made possible in part by contributions from viewers like you.

Thank you.

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