Emily Nguyen, Week #15: Michael C. Murphy

In fifth grade, maybe you had Mr. Spencer, or Mrs. Hill. Maybe you didn’t go to Warwick Elementary at all, where we had the towering redwood trees that Mr. Murphy had planted for us all those years ago—providing rare shade on that dry expanse of blacktop. 


The Warwick teachers I had were practically destined to be teaching young kids like us. Charismatic, memorable, and caring; I had this exhausting habit of crying my heart out after the last day of school as my daily schedule with them each ended. Though, I can’t say the same for the teachers I had through middle school, or even high school. Certain individuals shouldn’t subject themselves to torture and drag us students along the way for it. But all this is to say that of all my teachers across five different schools, the most memorable one is Mr. Murphy. 


That first year through the pandemic and online school, I really believed that I’d see Mr. Murphy after just “two weeks” of quarantine. I was going to miss the Pi Day activity he did every year! Among the years, he was the most dedicated teacher I ever knew: he made it a point to show up to class every single day. He used to have a counter that displayed his daily streak of coming to teach for thirty years straight until he was struck head-on in a car accident which left him comatose for two years. Recovering in time to teach my fifth grade class in 2019, he was distraught by the deteriorating intellect of students nowadays, and I always found this deeply intriguing. He grieved our education system just as I was surprised to see many of my peers forget basic fractions in the big fifth grade. During those lethargic Zoom sessions, he even read us kids To Kill a Mockingbird hours after class ended, since he heard that it had been removed from our high school curriculum. 


Along with graduating as an English major from Berkeley, he was the best artist I had ever had the pleasure of meeting in real life, with vivid still-lifes, portraits, and jazz. He taught fun details and the why behind things. How could the volatile fifth-grade me not admire him? A classmate accused me of being a teacher’s pet (which I did not understand at the time) and, well, of course I was. 


If you peered into our class, you could watch him visibly embody the spectrum of pink and red shades as he grew angry, which was quite frequent with our lot. He cried, for things that both moved and infuriated him. He was divorced, and lived alone in a grand, quiet house. And he would always tell us about how he was taking care of himself at that point in time, along with healing from the tidbits of his life growing up in 1960s America. While I know many of my peers scorn him even today for his rough temper, I was always completely absorbed in the story of his life. I missed the extraneous in our lessons when we transitioned to meeting via screens.


Where do fleeting promises disappear to? 


In the following school year, during an online class, we received the news that he had passed. Mike Murphy, who had assured us that he would absolutely attend our high school graduation, as he did for the very first class he ever taught 34 years ago and every class since then, was gone. We were the last bunch of kids he would teach since he had been threatening to hand in his retirement statement all year long. I never resented him for that sentiment, since he deserved a break and time to enjoy his retirement plans of finally traveling the world and strumming the guitar as he pleased. He was only 61 years old, after all. 


-


The few teachers that I’ve treasured since Mr. Murphy are probably bothered by how many questions I ask. It’s hard to balance my curiosity with not being an invasive pest. 


I’ll probably find a picture of Mr. Murphy to frame and bring to our graduation in his stead.

Mrs. Hill still teaches fifth grade to this day, just without her teacher partner. Image source

Comments

  1. Romir SApril 19, 2026 at 1:10 PM

    Emily, woah. Normally, after I read a blog, I know what direction I want to take my comment/ how I am going to start it. I have no idea where to start. This comment might end up being very, very long. I feel like I have a lot to say.

    I had Mrs. Hill for 5th grade so I did receive part of the blessing of "the Mr. Murphy experience." I remember the—and this sounds really weird to say but it truly is a "you had to be there"—one cheek per seat rule they employed on us when we did art. You painted his emotions pretty beautifully; I vividly remember his portrayals of deep sadness and deep rage—specifically the pink and red colors of his face which you wrote about.

    Everytime I drive by Northgate, I see Bing’s Dumplings; it reminds me of both Mrs. Hill and Mr. Murphy, and how they went to eat lunch there every Friday. When I heard the restaurant was closing, it felt like a part of my past was over. Like I always associated 5th grade memories with the restaurant, but now it can’t work like that.

    I still think about the trees and how he said they did not always exist, how he was the one who planted them. Like it’s crazy because we KNOW how tall they are. To think he caused that much growth—the trees and us—is something so surreal.

    I also remember one day during the MLK drawing, how when the whole class was "oohing" and "awing" Mrs. Hill's drawing, Mr. Murphy felt like we were being overly noisy and he yelled at us, only to say something along the lines of "Wow, Mrs. Hill, that's gorgeous." And this is not to diss on his character, I loved him.

    You write about how much he cared, how passionate he was, and how teachers now lack that. This is a thought I've had for such a long time now, and I'm glad it's not just me. I think a clear distinction between teachers during elementary vs teachers after elementary is that the prior love—and I mean truly love—their jobs. It kind of sucks that not all teachers carry this trait, especially because the ones that do have such a profound effect on us.

    I feel like this year especially—being in Mrs. Smith’s class—we do get a taste of elementary school. Whenever people ask me about Mrs. Smith’s APLANG, I describe“it’s like elementary school but it’s the hardest class ever.” There are a couple reasons for that: our teacher genuinely cares about her students; the class genuinely feels like a community, one where you can hold a conversation with any peer; we get sweet treats often-ish; and we are offered stuffed animals during class. It’s nice having a teacher who genuinely loves to teach.

    I still talk to Mrs. Hill to this day, and I do plan on visiting her soon. This blog has inspired me to text her.
    It’s just crazy to me how, even though we didn’t get to complete the year, their effect on us was so strong. I don’t know how to process this.

    Okay. I think I will stop now before I break every word limit Mrs. Smith has suggested. Emily, thank you, thank you for that amazing, amazing blog. I loved every bit of it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ShriramApril 22, 2026 at 5:40 PM

    Hi Emily! This blog immediately brought back a flood of memories from Warwick. First and foremost, thank you for that. I also had Mrs. Hill, so some of our class time was spent with Mr. Murphy. Initially, as others did, I simply thought he was a teacher with a short temper. However, I quickly realized just how passionate he was about everything, but to fail to realize the extent to which this was true was simply a limitation of my fifth-grade brain. Perhaps I was busy trying to get comfortable sitting on one-half of a chair.

    I never knew much about Mr. Murphy, but always had respect for his dedication. I really appreciate your blog for giving us this background and these examples of how truly special he was for our school. I still remember learning that he was the one who planted the tall redwood beside his building; I was amazed.

    Teaching elementary school requires a special type of person. I feel like anybody could teach a class like AP Calculus or AP Psychology, since they’re curriculum based and simply require small amounts of rigor. However, there is no rigor in elementary school. Fifth graders aren’t concerned about AP tests or college applications; instead, they have their whole lives ahead of them. Mr. Murphy wasn’t simply serving as a means for us to learn geometry and algebra, he was truly educating us. I think more people should realize how important that is. Thank you for this blog, Emily.

    ReplyDelete

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