Rob DeBlois, with wife Bonnie, in East Boston, summer 2019.
Two weeks ago, I lost my best friend, Rob DeBlois, who also happens to be one of the most important figures in American education in recent decades — and an all-around amazing, inspiring human being.
Back in the late 1990s, I wrote a book about Rob and the school he founded, The UCAP School in Providence, Rhode Island. At the time, I was focusing on the difficulties of starting an alternative public school program for at-risk kids. I also outlined the unique and successful accelerated learning model that the school employed (and that I’m still waiting for other schools to embrace). In addition, the book was a profile in courage about Rob. In college in 1975, he broke his neck in a diving accident and had become a quadriplegic . As I’ve said many times, it’s astounding how he was able to handle this terrible setback in life and accomplish so much.
Let me note a few things. After recovering from his injuries and settling into the complicated life as a quadriplegic, Rob would do the following:
Finish his undergraduate degree from the University of New Hampshire.
Earn his Masters degree in English from Brown University.
Earn his Masters in education from Rhode Island College.
Teach English at an all-girl’s Catholic school.
Start and run SPIRIT— an academic enrichment summer program for inner-city children.
Start The UCAP School — a groundbreaking, highly successful, year-round independent public school for kids at risk of dropping — and run it for 30 years straight.
For his work, Rob would earn, among other awards and accolades, an honorary doctorate degree from Rhode Island College; be named the Rhode Island Middle School Principal of the Year; be inducted into the Rhode Island Martin Luther King Hall of Fame; win the Rhode Island Foundation’s inaugural Murray Family Prize for Community Enrichment, be honored in Washington, DC, by the National Caring Foundation (along with the likes of Mother Theresa); and, of course, change the life trajectory of hundreds of Rhode Island children.
Rob and his school would be the feature of a book on education — Against the Current.
He and the school would also be featured in the documentary Accelerating America, which won best documentary in the Seattle International Film Festival and the Rhode Island Film Festival. (If you haven’t seen it, please do so soon).
CBS News also ran a spotlight feature on Rob and the school.
The UCAP School would be named a national middle-school model by the Carnegie Foundation. The U.S. Department of Education named the school as a national model.
Rob spoke at numerous conferences on needed changes in public education. He served on numerous boards and took part in Providence-area educational leader groups.
Over the years, he would also write a steady stream of op-ed pieces — many of them focused on supporting education for the underserved. But he would also write a number of moving pieces about life in and about Pawtucket and Providence
Oh… and he and wife, Bonnie, also decided they would start a family.
In all the tributes to Rob, a pattern appears — including the words remarkable, amazing, astounding, inspiring, monumental. When Rob was in the hospital recently, a friend talked with me about, among other things, Rob’s lifelong commitment to social justice. The friend noted Rob’s deep respect for John F. Kennedy — particularly for Kennedy’s final speeches before his assassination in Dallas. This speech took place at Amherst College in October of 1963. Kennedy went to dedicate the college’s new Robert Frost Library. Listening to the speech recently, I felt like I was also listening to a version of Rob — for everything Kennedy said that day about service to the nation, about using privilege for the common good, about the poetry of Robert Frost, and about the vital role of the artist in society — are all things I’ve heard Rob talk about over the years.
I have considered Rob my closest friend for 50 years. What I’ve so admired about Rob year in and year out has been both his unfailing enthusiasm for life and his wish to make this a better world. I’ve always been astounded by how he had kept his spirits up, given all he been through, given all his physical limitations. Here was a man who couldn’t even get himself out of bed in the morning, who could never be alone, who needed people to feed and clothe him — a man who lost so much of what one might consider the central part of himself — and yet he never sank into self-piety, never backed down, never gave up, and indeed, astoundingly, had spent so much of his life supporting others, guiding others, giving to others, cheering on others, loving others. Rob, in many ways, was our Mr. Rogers.
It’s hard to put into words my feelings for Rob. Of course, it’s deep admiration. But it’s a particular kind of admiration. What I know, though, is that I have always loved spending time with Rob. Because of his injury and limited mobility, spending time with him almost always involved slowing the world down, sitting together, being fully in the moment. Rob’s magic in every instance was in making us feel not just welcome, but valued. A conversation with Rob always felt like one of the better gifts one could get in this world.
When I can’t handle the sadness I feel, I often turn to books. The evening after Rob died, I was sitting in a bar in Exeter, New Hampshire, drinking a beer and reading a book by the Irish writer Colm Toibin. After a couple of pages, I came upon this sentence: “Somewhere in the great, unsteady archive where our souls will be held, there is a special section that records the quality of our gaze.”
Reading this, I knew instantly that I was supposed to find this quote on this day. For it describes the core of what has, for me, made Rob such a special person. It’s in his gaze — which is simply the outward expression of a soul that ran so deep. It’s that look he gave us. The way he’d see each and every one of us so fully. It’s the way he worked to acknowledge our humanity, encourage us, let us know that we, indeed, are special.
I’m deeply sad at Rob’s passing. But I also feel lucky for having him as such a central part of my life all these years. I know I will carry Rob in my heart for the rest of my days. His voice, his example, his humor, his moral strength, his open-heartedness, and his appreciation for others are now part of our essential fuel for living.
Here are some links about Rob DeBlois:
Do Not Discard
An uncommon educator helps those least likely to succeed
UNH Alumni Magazine
Brown Alumni Magazine
Documentary film by Tim Hotchner
(Official Trailer on YouTube)
My book on Rob and the school. Out of print, but still available — and still relevant.