Lawrence Keel, B.A., A.B., M.A., M.F.A., Ph.D.

I’m Lawrence Keel and during the long fall and spring semesters I teach writing, literature, and cinema at Cypress College here in the lovely county of oranges under the shadow of the Matterhorn. I have been teaching now for about nineteen years, at Cypress for almost eight and at USC and various CCs before that.

Good teachers like the best dragons follow a strange imperative: we puff, we roar, we breathe fire into the minds of our students and then we wake one day to find ourselves obsolete. We are partners to our students and as we help them increase their knowledge and (more importantly) their critical thinking skills, we become less necessary to them. They grow, and as Jackie Paper does, they discover new toys and journey to new territories and leave us behind—old dragons to settle back into our caves ceasing our mighty roars. This is as it should be.