and shawn leon has an irish mother, american navy father, he grew up in louisiana, near new orleans. is a lapsed catholic which i mention only because it was an element in the way he taught the class him was in a state of some distress himself about his open life, and he allowed himself -- to kids read athletes books in other classes at beacon, they read stories buy faulkner and hemingway, orwell and came after it. and some of these books were hard and disturbing and the kids were flatteredded by the difficulty, i think, of the assignment. they were -- i didn't notice anyone buckling under. let's put it that way. and mr. leon gave them an enormous amount of support and he had interesting ways of organizing the classes. one thing he did was to introduce the issues raided by the texts and bring them into their -- the kid's lives. i don't mean that it evolved into confessional sunday afternoon in the church basement, around the camp fire, sumper camp. much more rigorous than that. personal involvement and it calls came back to literature and halt he effect of pulling out of kids questio