Educator upholds honor

Jeff Karon says he isn't a true Renaissance man, but he doesn't shy from dabbling in multiple interests.

He's an educator, philosopher, businessman, poet, martial arts expert and dancer.

Karon, 51, moved to Tampa in 1991. Two years ago, he started The Honorable Classroom to teach college-bound students ways improve their academic and life skills.

He is also writing a book, "The Honorable Life," about living an honored life.

Karon holds a bachelor's in philosophy from New College in Sarasota and a master's and doctorate in English from the University of South Florida. He has taught at USF, the University of Tampa and Blake High.

He taught ballroom dancing. While working on his poetry, he became interested in flamenco and has trained in the traditional Spanish dance.

"I don't make money on this; I do this on the side," Karon said.

Tell me about the educating business that you started.

The Honorable Classroom ... is a private training and tutoring business. Most of my clients are teenagers who are college-bound. I handle anything that might be needed in order to make them ready for college. My specialty for many years was writing, but I help with anything from mathematics to English to literature.

What is your approach?

I focus on all aspects of behavior in order to strengthen the student; speaking, writing, how you act generally. That ties into the name of the business itself.

My own approach is an individualized training and tutoring session where I go into people's homes and work one-on-one with the student very much in the way people in ancient Rome and Greece and in the Renaissance worked one-on-one with people in order to make them stronger.

How do you use honor and why is it a theme in what you teach and your business?

Teenagers are actually hungry for strategies on how to act, on how to be stronger. ... Honor is a way of framing choices that we make and not giant choices of our life, which only come along once in a while, these big life-changing decisions. But the daily decisions. How are you going to treat a person at the store, at your job, in school, your parents, your children? How are you going to act externally?

What is honorable behavior?

Honorable behavior, it seems to me, is maintaining the dignity of other people - your speakers, the readers, employees or your boss - and maintaining your own. And if you can, you even raise the dignity of other people. ...

They recognize quickly that this is a way to be strong, effective and also fair in their lives.

How do you incorporate honorable classroom in a one-on-one setting?

Once you lay out some rules perhaps, or you and a student agree on rules that help a student be honorable. Then following those may in fact make that student much stronger in mathematics.

What are some rules?

I'll give you an example of four rules I use. The first one would be maintain focus. Another rule that's worth thinking about or trying to put into play would be maintaining respect. If you are a student in math, what do you need to respect? Not only the people around you. Not only the teachers, but the material itself. A third rule might be maintain obligations. You have obligations as a student. You have an implicit contract. If they (the students) learn this, then they are going to be much happier in college. The last rule I would tend to help students with is maintaining time.

Is that creating a holistic person?

It is a reputation in many ways. The longer you live the more you will build a reputation that precedes you. The younger you are or the more untested you are in a new profession or a new job, no reputation precedes you. Thus, you need to know how to walk into a situation and immediately be perceived as strong. That is not the same as aggressive or overbearing but a strong person in some appropriate ways.

How are teenagers embracing the philosophy?

Extremely well. I think in part I am not among the people who - it exists in every generation all the way back to the Romans and the Greeks - say this generation can't write, have a terrible taste in music, don't respect their elders, don't read.

Once I make it clear that I believe in respect in both ways, teenagers respond to it. Second, it turns out that I found that many teenagers from many different backgrounds are hungry for strategies that really will make them stronger - seen publicly stronger. They like strategic talk and strategic thinking.