The video of Charles Krohn, 91 years old, leading a virtual class “like a boss” was captured by his daughter and quickly went viral, demonstrating that age is nothing more than a number. The most significant influence you can have on another person is via your ability to accept a challenge and pursue it with enthusiasm. More than half of Charles’s professional life has been spent in the classroom teaching English.
Charles accepted the outbreak of the pandemic in stride and made the decision to educate himself on the many facets of online teaching when it occurred. Not only was he successful in overcoming the learning curve, but he also managed to excel beyond it. Why?
Because Charles Kronn has a deep love for the written word and he hopes to instill that same enthusiasm in each and every one of his pupils, he teaches writing.
But on a certain day he was experiencing problems with his computer, so he approached his daughter Julia and requested if he might use her computer instead. When she finally got a hold of him, his daughter was overcome with admiration.
She couldn’t understand that he could still be enthusiastic and enthusiastic about teaching the same stuff that he had been teaching for decades. She found it hard to believe. Because she was so pleased with him, she just had to take a photo of it and share it on Facebook.
She said that she felt compelled to take a picture because “the fact that [he’s teaching] online and yet yet engaging and so clever and so fast… it was just this wonderful moment that I just had to capture.”
She published an unposed photograph of her father, Charles Krohn, seated at her computer, and she wrote the following beneath the caption of the image: “Over the course of more than half a century, my father has held the position of English instructor at The University of St. Thomas. At the age of 91, he is showing no signs of slowing down as he dives headfirst into the world of online instruction.”
She went on to say that it was a wonderful experience to “listen to and see him lecture Homer’s The Odyssey.”
Even though he’s been instructing it for decades, he nevertheless approaches the material with the same level of enthusiasm and intensity as if it were the first time. These children are blissfully unaware of how fortunate they are.