As Spark SF Public Schools celebrates its 10th anniversary, we invite San Franciscans from all walks of life to share their reflections on the profound impact of public schools and the personal experiences that have shaped their journeys.

Our January newsletter features SFUSD Parent and Hematologist-Oncologist Dr. Gerald Hsu. You may remember him from his recent Op-Ed in the SF Chronicle about why his family is choosing public schools. 

Spark: Who was a teacher/educator at your preK-12 school who made a lasting impact on your life, and why?

Gerald Hsu: My 10th grade English teacher, Richard Friss, is the person that comes to mind for two major reasons: the first was that this was a class where I felt as though I intellectually came into my own. He was the type of English teacher who emphasized critical reading and critical writing and making connections between what we were reading and life. I remember writing about making these types of connections in the work that we were doing, oftentimes rather unsuccessfully. But this is how he was influential in another way, and perhaps a more important way: I remember him saying to us repeatedly that our grade was not our worth, that he might give us a grade on an assignment that was a B, C, D or even F, but that didn’t mean we were lesser people. He taught us that you could decouple what your grade was on an assignment from who you were as a person. For me, I think that the biggest lesson was that your work is your work and it is often a reflection of what you do and how well you do it but it does not speak to who you might be as a human being at your core.

Spark: What's the most important thing a public school education can provide?

GH: I hope that public schools are places where every child can realize their best selves - places that provide a breadth of opportunities that draw on the strengths and talents of diverse people. I do feel as though our public schools are that. I think they serve the whole swath of San Franciscans and it doesn’t matter whether you are academically inclined and gifted in physics or math or your talents lie more in creative domains. Our schools are places where you have enriching opportunities for people regardless of where their interests lie. 

Spark: As a parent and medical professional, what's one thing you want today's public school students to know?

GH: This is something that I think I spoke a little bit about in the piece that I wrote [for the SF Chronicle]. It connects to what my 10th grade teacher said, which was that your grade is not your worth and similarly the college that you attend is also not your worth. I hope people feel as though they can make the most of what opportunities present themselves -and those opportunities can be really anywhere- and that well-meaning, talented people who are intellectually inclined, great thinkers and passionate, exist everywhere, so there is no one recipe for success. You want to make the most of whatever opportunities present themselves to you. I think the focus should be on doing good and doing good work. If your intentions are pure, if you are focused on the meaning and not striving for status or brands, gratification will come. 

Spark: What role do you think public schools play in shaping San Francisco?

GH: I think of San Francisco as a unique place for the kind of diverse America that we strive for and I hope that the role our public schools play is to showcase what can happen when we consider the diversity of perspectives, races, ethnicities, genders and the richness of the people that engage and surround us in our communities: that we are truly better when we work together as one. So I hope that our public schools can be a model for what happens when everybody commits to a public institution because I really do believe that synergistically we are even better than the sum of us. 

Spark: How can the greater San Francisco community come together to support our schools?

GH: I think the best way that we can support our public schools in San Francisco is to live our values. If we really believe that diversity is our strength, then we want to lean into the opportunities to engage with people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives that are not our own and I think our public schools are the best place for that. If we eschew artificial barriers and ways to segregate our kids and our communities, I think we can really live up to our potential. My idea would be for people to really subscribe to public institutions, to places that really do welcome all of us. 

Dr. Gerald Hsu works as a hematologist/oncologist at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Health Care System and as the program director of the hematology/oncology fellowship program at UCSF. After attending public schools in Canada and the Bay Area, he went to the University of Toronto for college before returning to the US to do a MD and PhD through the medical scientist training program at Duke University. He and his wife reside in the Outer Richmond. Their daughter is currently an eighth grader at Presidio Middle School and looks forward to attending a SFUSD high school next year.