When a legend leaves, everyone feels it. It’s not just the sophomores who will spend their next months cycling through substitute after substitute, nor the seniors who are now suddenly scrambling to find somebody else to write their college recommendations. It hits the whole school, a force of missing a part of ourselves that we didn’t even know was so important to begin with.

At Garfield, there are teachers, and there are legends. These are the people who live on past the finite limits of their employment, because they imparted on their students more than just dates and facts and figures. I’ve heard the stories, and I’m sure you have, too; teachers like Mr. McGowan, Dr. Piccioni, and Mr. Anderson. Their memory is as much a part of Garfield as Jimi Hendrix, their names spoken with a reverence usually reserved for Quincy Jones.

Dan Cerquitella began working at Garfield as an Advancd Placement European History teacher about eight years ago; since then, his class has become known for its intellectual rigor as well as its unique teaching approach. By assigning virtually no homework, he expected students to learn all the requisite material solely through class lectures and outside reading.

Widely respected among staff, students and parents, Mr. Cerquitella was a sharply defined character, known for his love of comic books, his expertise at teaching, and his unfettered idealism. His classroom stood out from all others with its wallpapering of superhero posters, newspaper clippings, and political cartoons, while action figures lined every available ledge and windowsill.

Mr. Cerquitella was known not just for teaching history but also for teaching about important real-life issues. Like not wearing white socks with dress shoes, or a tie with a short-sleeve shirt. Or on love –“He told us, ‘every minute you’re spending with someone who isn’t the right one for you is a minute you’re not spending with the person who is,’” recalls Garfield senior Lorraine Keeler, a lesson that clearly stuck through the years.

“Mr Cerquitella sat me down and gave me a life lesson about not procrastinating, being successful,” recounts Garfield junior James Squires. “He really looks out for his students, and it’s sad that future Garfield students aren’t going to have that.”

Mr. Cerquitella’s announcement last week of his resignation reverbrates throughout the community and affects not only past students, but teachers, parents and younger students who will never get to experience the distinctiveness of his classroom.

What Mr. Cerquitella did for us was he set us up for the rest of high school. For most of us, his course was our initiation into the daunting world of AP classes, and while we went in hardly more than scared little freshmen, we came out ready for whatever the coming years had to throw at us. Every essay we’ve written since then, every multiple choice test we’ve had, every individual Cornell note we’ve taken in every composition notebook we’ve owned is a testament to his teaching ability. At its corniest, he taught us how to learn; at its most basic, he gave anyone who was interested all the tools they needed to make it through the next two years.

Cerquitella would probably hate this article; he would probably hate the fact that he is being featured in the Messenger at all. But he’s just going to have to accept that this is the only way we know to pay tribute to what he’s done for us. And, although he probably will never, ever admit it, he might miss us too.