In what may be the longest homework assignment in history, a group of students has waited nearly 50 years for one retired teacher to teach his students the biggest lesson of all the day of the solar eclipse. 

Patrick Moriarty has always had a niche for education.

“Science was always a big thing for me and I loved Earth science because whatever you learned, you could step out the door and see it,” retired teacher Patrick Moriarty said. “And I thought, ‘Oh, this is the best science in the world, because I can put my hands on anything I'm learning.’ So I thought, you know, I think I'm going to go into education. And I went into education and found it was a complete suit for me.”

He became an earth science teacher for the Webster Central School District. In 1978, Moriarty was passing out worksheets about eclipses to his ninth-grade students.

“So I had this sheet of about 50 eclipses that were coming up from like 1974 until 2030,” Moriarty said. “And one of them was going to happen right here in this area on April 8, 2024. So I turned to the kids and I said, ‘All right, circle that eclipse on April 8th, 2024.’”

He made a promise that became a tradition for the next 16 years of his career. 

“We're going to meet on that day,” Moriarty said. “And they looked at me like I was crazy because they were only 14 years old.”

Moriarity’s former students shared in disbelief how the lesson would soon come to life.

“He's keeping his word,” former student at Spry Junior High Kevin Thompson said. “One of my buddies from class, we're still good friends and it's something I wondered if we're going to do that, that's getting closer, that type of thing.”

“Mr. Moriarity was my teacher in 1988,” former student at Schroeder High School Andrea Rock said. “And I was like ‘oh yeah okay.’ Years later he ended up being my 10th grade basketball coach. We were in similar professions. I'm an administrator. He was an administrator. And so our paths had crossed professionally, you know, here and there. So we've sort of stayed in touch then through Facebook.”

Fast forwarding almost 50 years, Moriarty has held to his word. preparing to open his home for a reunion of over 100 of his former students, colleagues and family. 

“It's really not about the eclipse anymore,” Moriarty said. “It's about people and the sharing and the impact of teachers, the impact of teachers and what teachers can mean to students even when they're 60 years old and they can think back to when they were in junior high.”

They are looking forward to celebrating not only a once in a lifetime opportunity of the eclipse, but also being able to be taught by their teacher again. 

“I am going to look so forward to hearing Mr. Moriarty teach the lesson that we've waited 40 years to get the experience of,” Thompson said. “Many teachers don't get to experience what he's been experiencing the last couple of years through Facebook and now in-person students sharing what he meant to them in their lives. And it's awesome because teachers don't get to hear that enough.”

Many of his students share that although this has been the longest homework assignment in history, they have all gained a new lesson. 

“You can take the teacher out of the classroom, but you can't take the classroom out of the teacher and to witness this event with him in such a way that he's going to bring it to life,” Rock said. “There's no better place that I'd rather be than to hear him orchestrate these three minutes.”