 | Assistant Head Master Malcolm Flynn is an institution at BLS. In his forty-fourth year at the school, no one can imagine arriving for the day without finding Mr. Flynn there! First to arrive at 6 AM, he manages the daily opening duties, taking faculty sick calls, arranging for substitute teachers and preparing coverage and duties. During the day, he handles all disciplinary matters while also managing the building and facility. Mr. Flynn truly knows every nook and cranny of Boston Latin School, from the rooftop pool to the deepest recesses of the basement. Luckily for him, his crew of able student volunteers assists him.
While we often see his serious, thoughtful face, BLS has been introduced to the other Mr. Flynn, courtesy of the Faculty Talent Show, where he showcases his love of all things country, from clothes to music. When oddly shaped packages arrive with the mail, Ms. Mooney Teta knows Mr. Flynn has been shopping for new golf clubs!
Malcolm Flynn can be found in his office surrounded by paperwork, bustling around the halls looking for leaks, having a quiet cup of tea or reading his ARGO. How would we all function without him? No wonder Ms. Mooney Teta calls him her "right hand man!"
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How long have you worked at BLS and in what roles?
| | A. | I started at BLS in 1964 as a temporary teacher in the English department. Luckily for me, I agreed to advise the chess team that year. Luckily because in the spring of ’65, after the head master had informed me there was no position for me the next year, he read in the Globe that the BLS Chess Team had won the Massachusetts championship. Suddenly, a position opened. I continued with the chess team for twenty years, a national and seven state championships.
For twenty-six years now I have been advisor to student government and the Argo. Since leaving the classroom in 1998 to become assistant head master, those two extra-curricular responsibilities have kept me working closely with students, something that is important in administration. Of course, my responsibility for discipline also keeps me working closely with students. While the work I do now is as challenging in different ways as is teaching English, I have often said that if I still had to grade 150 papers at a sitting, I would have retired long ago.
Along the way I have been union representative and faculty senate member and chair, construction supervisor and critic.
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| Q. | How did you become the Trivia Master?
| | A. | When I came to BLS I knew only that it was the oldest school in America having taken a history of education course. I knew nothing about BLS graduates or traditions or curriculum. English enrichment was introduced that year for sixies, three days per week, and Breeder of Democracy, by retired master Philip Marson, was required. A difficult book for sixies, it nonetheless introduced the history, traditions, and the great alumni to students and masters alike. Over the years I have simply absorbed the culture and the history. Surely some of what I have learned is not mere trivia, but I still have difficulty distinguishing between the twins Darius and Cyrus Cobb, artists who entered the school in 1849, so perhaps that is a trivial matter. Not many schools can boast of eleven governors of their states, senators and congressmen representing at least five different states. justices and chief justices of several states and two nations, secretaries of war and state, attorneys general, and countless others in national, state and local public service; not many that the American Revolution began when British General Gage sent troops to Lexington with orders to arrest two of their alumni, that after the battles at Lexington and Concord he offered amnesty to everyone but those two.
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| Q. | What are the last books you've read? The book on your nightstand right now?
| | A. | Last books: Eight in the Box, by Raffi Yessayan '86; The Greatest Game Ever Played, by Mark Frost. On the nightstand: Life on the Mississippi, by Mark Twain.
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| Q. | What's something BLS students should know about you? Would be interested to know about you? Don't know about you?
| | A. | They should know that I play golf by the rules and I accept responsibility for success and for failure, along with a little bit of luck. They might be interested in knowing that I love kids and want to see them do well, and want to help them when necessary to see the right path to success. What they don’t know they don’t need to know.
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| Q. | What's your favorite part of the day?
| | A. | Morning is best. Every morning I know I am going to accomplish something today, either at school or on the golf course.
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| Q. | How do you spend your time outside of BLS?
| | A. | Improving myself.
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| | | In my years at BLS I have seen more change than was seen in any other comparable period. Through all the changes BLS has remained true to its mission, retaining a liberal arts college preparatory curriculum, resisting trends and fads but incorporating modern techniques and usages that support the mission. It is a great place to work because it is dynamic, never boring. In contrast to my own feeling however, is one constant on which all alumni and current students seem to agree: the longer one is here as a student, the more fiercely one desires to get out.
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