It was 1969. Feldman hobbled across campus, more concerned with getting to class than protecting his cast from a classic Gainesville rainstorm. His plaster and cotton-wrapped leg had broken during a flag football game at Norman Field, and the inconvenience hindered his walks to class and his work as a waiter at the Alpha Epsilon Phi sorority house. A concerned AEPhi sister saw him walking in the rain.

“This adorable, kind first-year student, Avis, runs up to me and says, ‘I recognize you – you’re our waiter! Would you like to share my umbrella?’” Feldman recalls. “I really don’t care for umbrellas, so I declined and told her I would meet her at the house. I didn’t know any better.”

He didn’t know he had just met his future wife. 

He and Avis went on to major in childhood education, piloting a new program at the College of Education structured around humanism – a learner-centered approach gaining traction at the time over traditional behaviorist models. The program changed the course of Feldman’s life, a sharp turn off the Miami native’s original path.

“My best friend was supposed to come to UF with me. He wanted to be a dentist, so I figured I should be a dentist,” Feldman says. “But he went to Georgia, and I had zero motivation to stand over someone working on their teeth all day. Once I entered Dr. [Arthur] Combs’ program, I knew that education was my life’s calling.”

Feldman and Avis were married weeks after graduation in 1973, the culmination of her completing her bachelor’s degree and he obtaining his master’s in special education. Upon leaving Gainesville, the newlyweds bought a house in Miami where each would launch decades-long careers in education. 

Last year, they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. 

Feldman prefers guidelines over guardrails.

“My parents always gave me guidelines instead of guardrails,” he explains. “Guardrails are barriers to keep things in line – which is great if you’re a car on a mountain. But students are not cars. Instead, we should provide guidelines so learners can be open to movement, development, and experimentation as we guide them through learning.”

As an undergrad, his resistance to guardrails compelled him to knock on UF President Stephen O’Connell’s front door one night in 1972. A bureaucratic oversight threatened to disrupt his plans to graduate and enter the school’s special education master’s program, and he wanted to make the president aware.

Feldman recalls standing with Avis at the doorstep, hoping security would allow him to get a word in before throwing them out. 

“They approached us, I knocked on the door, and as they were ready to grab me, the door opens, and there’s President O’Connell standing in his bathrobe wearing his University of Florida slippers. I explained that I wasn’t there to cause problems – I was simply a student who wanted to talk about an unreasonable policy at the university preventing me from graduating. He invited Avis and I in.”

Despite the late hour, O’Connell chatted with the students about his life experiences as a former Florida Supreme Court justice and allowed Feldman to air his grievances. He invited the young man to visit his office in the morning. 

O’Connell ultimately instructed staff to resolve the problem, fixing an issue that affected multiple students. Feldman would graduate on time by modifying the guardrails surrounding him.

Feldman’s avant-garde approach, amplified at UF, profoundly influenced his teaching as he put his education into practice.

“As a special education teacher, emphasizing guidelines over guardrails allowed me to focus on my students’ full potential – what my kids needed from me rather than what I wanted from them.”