Teachers Aren't Supposed to Outlive Their Students — A Tribute to Elizabeth (Beth) Ann Allen (1983–2017)

Beth Ann Allen (1983–2017)

Yesterday, March 27, 2020, was the third anniversary of the death of one of my dearest former students and friends, Beth Ann Allen (1983–2017). Beth Ann and her good friend Ashley Hussey were students of mine at UC Santa Cruz when I was first teaching/TA-ing back in the early 2000s. Beth Ann and I talked philosophy and Star Trek and remained friends from there. Years later, when we needed a contract philosophy writer at Aplia, I brought Beth Ann on board, knowing she would put her nose to the grindstone, do an awesome job, and that we would always have fun working together in the process. I have seldom encountered anyone more unique or with a greater love of life and sense of individuality than Beth Ann, and I was privileged to play even a small part in the person she became, and to know her and count her as a friend. She will always be missed and remembered and loved by everyone who knew her.

Teachers aren’t supposed to outlive their students; it goes against the natural order of things. Every true teacher and mentor hopes not only that his or her students learn the lessons they are supposed to learn, but also that they will go on to surpass their teachers, outliving their teachers, accomplishing and experiencing things that their teachers may never even see, eventually passing those lessons and ideals on to further generations and onward into the future.

The death of a student, or former student, reminds us that events don’t always happen according to the natural order of things. Sometimes people die who should have lived, and a life still young and full of promise and possibilities is sometimes cut short before its true potential is realized. Any early death, of a student or otherwise, also highlights the potential absurdity of human life, as the French existentialist philosopher Albert Camus would have been quick to point out. That said, even a life that was too short, like that of my former student and friend, Beth Ann, can have profound effects on and within the lives of other people, on the lives of her husband and parents and friends, for example, and on those of us who knew her in her formative years and who weaved in and out of her life like threads of friendship so often do. While one end of each of those threads gets cut short when a student and friend dies prematurely, the other end of each thread goes onward forever into the future, into the hearts and minds of the other human lives with which a person was intertwined in the course of his or her life, and onward into the future.

Beth Ann taught me things that live on in me, as I had hoped the things I taught would live on in her after I was gone. She taught me to be an individual, to be excited intellectually and artistically, taught me that I would and could be appreciated as an educator (and eventually as a friend), taught me not to settle for being like everyone else when I could be more interesting and authentic and creative instead, in the classroom or otherwise, and she taught me that education is about more than just the subject matter at hand; it is about mentoring, friendship, support, and making lifelong connections with intrinsic value that persists even through and beyond the death of any one person, transcending time itself, generations, and even the absurd finitude of this earthly life.

So, as it turned out, Beth Ann was the real teacher, and I her student, in a sad but surprising reversal of the roles we used to have. The lessons she taught me about life will live on in me, in all who knew her, and in future generations as I continue fighting the good fight and passing those lessons on to still other students to this very day, most of whom will hopefully outlive me and pay those lessons of friendship and individuality forward into the future, restoring and fulfilling the natural order of things after all.

Beth Ann Allen (1983–2017)