Sunday, November 2, 2014
No teacher had a greater impact on my life than Mr. Cundari, and I will always regret that although I had intended many times to contact and tell him this, I waited too long to do so.
I am a teacher now myself, and hardly a day goes by that Mr. Cundari's influence on me is not passed along within my own classes. I do not teach Latin, but it doesn't matter, because what he taught me was LIFE, how to learn, and simply to be curious about everything. He refused to let us use notebooks ("they postpone learning") but equipped us with an Obiter Dicta ("to jot down interesting things said in passing"). He opened my mind to an insatiable curiosity for all things beyond textbooks, curricula, and tests, and taught me to think for myself.
Jack Cundari's love of learning was simply infectious, and I am glad that I was infected as well. I was never the same, and for that I will be forever grateful to this unique, gentle, funny, brilliant man.
Non scholae sed vitae discimus. (We learn not for school but for life.) Vale, magister.
Sincere condolences to family and loved ones.
