Charles Sposato, a shaper of young minds, instiller of spirit
Before each school day, Charles P. Sposato stood outside the door of Media and Technology Charter High School in Boston and shook the hand of every arriving student. He knew the names of all the teenagers who entered.
"He greeted each student with a ritual," said Alan Safran, the school's executive director. "He'd ask, 'Why are you here?' And the student had to answer, 'I'm here to learn.' And he'd say, 'What will that take?' And the student had to answer, 'Courage, discipline, and perseverance.' "
Mr. Sposato, Safran said, "wanted to distinguish the world outside from the sanctuary inside the school. It was a community, a safe place."
Schools were sacred to Mr. Sposato, and learning was almost a form of prayer. A former seminary student, he found his calling in the classroom, first as a teacher, then as founding principal of the charter school.
Mr. Sposato, who was named teacher of the year in 1990 by the state Education Department, died of cancer Sunday in his Framingham home. He was 60.
"I love being a teacher," he told the Globe in 1990 after hearing about the Education Department honor.
"Teaching is as close to touching the eternal as you can possibly get, because you're dealing with minds," he said, adding later in the interview: "I don't believe the profession is well appreciated by many people. I want to show people and civic organizations what we really are. Teachers are poets. Teachers are saints, in many ways."
Mixing a steely approach to discipline with humor and compassion that seemed to know no bounds, Mr. Sposato quickly became as legendary for his commitment to students at the high school, where he became principal in 2000, as he had been in Framingham's school system, where he taught for 30 years.
Other than Mr. Sposato, "I have never had a principal or a teacher say, 'Marcus, love you, you're doing great,' " said Marcus John, a senior at the charter school. "He always looked at the part of you that could achieve. He always looked at the potential; he never called out your flaws."
Hugs were common when Mr. Sposato was around, and his handshakes were unforgettable.
"When Charlie shook your hand, he would shake it profusely, pumping your hand up and down in a way that made you feel he never wanted to let you go," Safran said.
Mr. Sposato's mother died when he was a child, and he grew up with his older brother in Westerly, R.I., cared for by their grandparents and aunt and uncle and - when he wasn't working at a tavern - their father, who instilled in the boys a love of words.
"Our father was always reading," said Mr. Sposato's brother, Ronald, of Westerly. "He loved the library. Even at home, he'd have one big dictionary on the kitchen table and little ones all over the place - even in his glove compartment."
After high school, Mr. Sposato entered the Marist seminary in Framingham and graduated in 1970 from Boston College. That year, he decided to leave the seminary and become a teacher. He also met Mary O'Connell through her family at a Boston College event. They married a few months later.
For 15 years he taught at Farley Middle School in Framingham, along the way receiving a master's in education from Framingham State College in 1974. Then he moved to the high school, where he created a program for at-risk students and helped reinvent the English curriculum.
Mr. Sposato also was chosen as a finalist in the competition to see who would be the first teacher in space. Christa McAuliffe, who was chosen to be part of the crew on the Challenger, died when the space shuttle exploded just after lifting off in January 1986.
A decade later, Mr. Sposato told the Globe that he encouraged his students to see her quest as part of a long line of heroes stretching back to Odysseus.
"Not a day goes by when I don't think that it could have been me in place of Christa," he said.
At home, Mr. Sposato passed his father's love of libraries on to his own daughters, with whom he traveled to school each day when they went to Framingham High.
"We'd go to the library every week and get these armloads of books," said Melissa Sposato-Madden of Framingham. "As we left, we would watch to see which way he turned. If he turned left, that meant he was taking us out for ice cream; if he turned right, that meant he was going home."
"As long as I've known him, he's always had a book in his hand and he's always been quoting what he's read," said Mr. Sposato's other daughter, Martha Sposato-Turner of Hudson.
Growing up the daughters of perhaps the most popular teacher in town, Martha and Melissa gained a sort of reflected celebrity. Everybody seemed to know him and wanted to know more.
"When people heard my name in class, they'd ask, 'Oh, are you related to Mr. Spo?' People thought he was a kind of superhero," Melissa said. "All my friends wanted to come over to see what Mr. Spo's house looked like."
After 30 years as a teacher and an armload of awards, Mr. Sposato found himself courted for an administrative post with the Media and Technology Charter High School, which had yet to be opened.
Michael Goldstein, the school's founder, recalled that when he was interviewing principal candidates, "I got glowing references on Charlie from the most unlikely source: the kids smoking cigarettes in the school parking lot where he taught. It was the toughest kids who most connected with Charlie."
Mr. Sposato decided to take on the new challenge, in part because he could help shape an entire school. One of his teacher recruits was Jorge Miranda, who succeeded Mr. Sposato as principal.
"Before I met Charlie, I was ready to quit teaching," Miranda said. "When I came here, he reignited my passion and my dedication and my idealism."
"He was just so inspirational," said Anthony Trotman, a senior at the school. "My senior year is going to be dedicated to him."
In addition to his wife, two daughters, and brother, Mr. Sposato leaves two granddaughters and a grandson.
A funeral Mass will be said at 11 a.m. today in St. Linus Church in Natick. Burial will be private. 