In ‘Just Raise Your Left Hand,’ John Kerrigan riffs on a career with literary license
April 7, 2025 | By Steve Rand Just raise your left hand and everything will go smoothly in Joe Tepedino’s science classroom at Softwood High in central Vermont, where students enthusiastically share the wrong answers to go along with their teacher’s ruse.
Former longtime Harwood science teacher and coach – and now author – John Kerrigan, with his collection of short stories, ‘Just Raise Your Left Hand.’ Photo by Gordon Miller
The title passage heralds John Kerrigan's book of fictional short stories, Just Raise Your Left Hand, which is comical and irreverent, yet celebratory, too.
Each story features Joe Tepedino, an everyman hero, someone who loves his work but not the bosses. Even though he is a prankster at times, Joe is passionate about teaching and learning. Early on the reader learns that Joe must confront his grief after losing his mother and his wife. He also must confront his own misgivings about his profession.
Throughout Just Raise Your Left Hand, Joe is skeptical about the state of public education in America because he believes schools lack quality leadership and ingenuity.
It is safe to say Joe Tepedino does not like bureaucrats espousing shiny, new initiatives in schools because he believes there are hidden agendas unrelated to the art of teaching. Luckily, as Joe reflects on his relationships with his students and his family, he is filled with joy and admiration, so much so, he refuses to retire from coaching.
At the urging of his son Vincenzo, Joe travels to the Apennine Mountains in Italy, the town of Grand Sasso to be exact. There he witnesses remarkable feats of endurance by young athletes from around the world participating in the International Skyrunning Youth Championship. He is enamored by the landscape, the athletes and fellow coaches he meets. Joe is also filled with immense pride to be working with Vincenzo, who is the head coach of the United States Youth Skyrunning team made up of young runners from various regions of the U.S.
At its core, Just Raise Your Left Hand is a celebration of grand achievements by Joe's students, and, at times, an intimate portrait of how people are truly unique. Joe is puckish and irreverent. But his stories also contain wonderful moments like when a character named Tiger consoles a Russian athlete by giving him a bear hug.
One of the more zany yet tender moments in the book is a convoluted tale about Joe passing out in the classroom during a science lab after donating blood. Joe as the narrator recounts how and why his students decide to remedy the situation themselves.
Based on hearsay, the students become fearful that Joe might incur the wrath of the principal if found incapacitated on the floor during a lab. So the class decides to drag Joe into an alcove, cover him with a fire blanket, prop his feet with a backpack, and cushion his head with a sweatshirt. What they end up doing is comical and sweet, providing levity against the backdrop of Joe doing the right thing – donating blood after 9/11.
Fiction pays homage to a career
I have known and worked with the author John Kerrigan for over 25 years, and I believe his book is an homage to a place he loves dearly, Harwood Union High School.
Kerrigan was a science teacher and coach at Harwood Union High School from 1977 until 2024. He was nominated twice for Vermont Teacher of the Year, and he was a runner-up for Vermont Biology Teacher of the Year twice. In 2019, he was inducted into the Run Vermont Hall of Fame. He was selected as the Vermont’s Girls Cross Country Coach of the Year by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association in 2015 and in 2021. He also received the Golden Apple Award for his work with Special Education Student Athletes. During his tenure, Kerrigan’s varsity Cross Country and Nordic skiing teams won a total of 47 state championships.
Kerrigan retired from teaching in 2015 after spending 38 years in the classroom. He continued to coach cross country, Nordic skiing, and track and field, finally ending that run in 2024.
I consider Kerrigan a colleague and a friend who worked tirelessly for over 40 years. He has his own ideas about best practices in the classroom. All of us who work and live in the Harwood school district have varying opinions about what is best for our children. And our opinions tend to be strong because we care so much about children in our small towns.
Yes, there are a few instances in Just Raise Your Left Hand when the current culture wars creep in and interfere with the story. These moments seem out of place. Our everyman hero Joe Tepedino often encourages and collaborates with students and colleagues. Kerrigan through Tepedino saves his barbs for authority figures. Clearly, he believes administrators are the villains creating discontent, not some abstract cultural norms.
At an early-January book signing at the American Legion in Waterbury, the author (center) visits with former students Jeffrey Cove (left) and Jamie Thomas Roberts (right), whose illustration is on the book’s cover. Photo by Gordon Miller
A teacher and coach first
There are many poignant lines in Kerrigan’s stories. He knows of endurance. He knows of the body's capacity to withstand great pain, great suffering. He knows the spirit of competition, and why people continually push themselves beyond their own idea of how much they may endure.
For instance, Kerrigan writes: “Many runners, especially those who are more talented... prefer to go hard every day. Their bodies cannot take it. They are stressed by growing, maturing, and all of the other issues that affect the average teenager in our complicated times. Active rest, such as long, slow runs and socializing with teammates is as good for the body as it is for the soul.”
Kerrigan ends several of his story by sharing aphorisms, something a consummate teacher would do – passing on a pearl of wisdom at the very end of class with the hope it might stick in the frontal lobe with the hope that those within earshot one day might retrieve it during a time of need.
At the end of a story about 9/11, Kerrigan quotes President Calvin Coolidge: “I love Vermont because of her hills and valleys, her scenery and invigorating climate, but most of all because of her indomitable people. They are a race of pioneers who have almost beggared themselves to serve others.”
Even though he is from Long Island, John has lived the good life in Vermont, embracing its folksiness, and he has played the character of an enamored transplant, a witty mountain man, a banterer, a jokester, and a hall-of-fame coach who cherishes his years of public service. His book is a celebration of amazing achievements by former students with ample doses of his trademark mischievousness and irreverence woven throughout.
Postscript & library visits in Waterbury, Cabot this week
Former Harwood student Jamie Thomas Roberts designed the cover art for 'Just Raise Your Left Hand' by John Kerrigan.
Joe Tepedino’s career bears an unapologetic resemblance to Kerrigan’s Harwood role. It even parallels Kerrigan’s latest undertaking with son Ryan into the real-life world of the nascent extreme sport of skyrunning. (In fact, proceeds from the sale of Just Raise Your Left Hand support the U.S. Youth Skyrunning team.)
Likewise, some of the book’s characters may ring familiar to those who worked and learned at Harwood during Kerrigan’s tenure. For some local readers, Kerrigan’s portrayal of a handful of his fictionalized characters in the vignettes hit a little too close to home, so much so that objections to Kerrigan’s narrative style led one local bookshop to rethink its plans for an author book-signing event late last year around the time of the book’s release. Kerrigan quickly registered his disappointment and disapproval on social media. But after seeing some friends direct ire toward the store, he tempered his criticism, pointing out that the shop is still selling the book.
Kerrigan has since made the rounds to many Vermont independent bookstores, dropping off his paperback story collection. He’s even ventured to deliver to shops in Maine and New Hampshire.
This Tuesday, April 8, the South Duxbury resident and author pays a visit to the Waterbury Public Library for a book reading, Q&A, and refreshments, starting at 6:30 p.m. On Wednesday, April 9, at 7 p.m. he will be the guest of the Cabot Public Library for a similar event.
Kerrigan says he will sign books readers bring with them if they’ve already purchased one. He also will have copies available for $15 (check, cash or PayPal accepted). All proceeds go to U.S. Youth Skyrunning. Also available online at his publisher’s website, BookBaby.com.