Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with Mr. Hill, one of Oratory Prep’s English teachers, and I asked him a few questions about his past work experience in journalism, his teaching career, and his personal interests and hobbies. I first asked him what it was that got him interested in teaching. This is what he said, “So I think one of the reasons I wanted to become a teacher is to help others and I think I understand and enjoy telling stories, reading stories, and understanding stories.” Mr. Hill emphasized that he has always loved storytelling and for an English teacher, he is telling stories to students, whether it be through presentations, book discussions, or talking about the way a poem is written. The way he told stories as a journalist allowed him to inform people about important topics whereas as a teacher he was able to tell stories to help students understand what they are learning and grow in the subject.
After this, I asked him what made Oratory stand out to him in particular when applying for a teaching position. Before working at OP, Mr. Hill began his career at Plainfield High School. He worked there for two and a half years and later transitioned to working at Elizabeth High School, where he worked as an English teacher for 5 years. And then after working in the public school system for a number of years, he saw there was an opening to teach an AP class in which he’d never done. Given his past experience as a journalist and public school teacher, he thought this would be another good opportunity to expand his skill set and challenge himself, so he came over to OP.
Following discussing Mr. Hill’s career as a teacher, I wanted to understand more about why he was interested in English specifically. To understand this, I had to go back to before he was even a teacher and instead, when he was a journalist. I asked him what working in Journalism was like, and through this, I was able to discern more of how he became interested in teaching. Here’s what Mr. Hill said about his work as a Journalist, “It’s exciting. It keeps you on your feet, makes you learn. You have to really be very adaptable. If something goes wrong, you’ve got to go to plan B and C. You also need to bring in a lot of information quickly into your head so that you can process it and interview someone. You want to research someone. You learn how to understand topics and ideas quickly so you can then write about them. So with that also comes a lot of stress. And a lot of the business is exciting, but it’s also you have very long hours. You work 12-hour days.” A large reason why Mr. Hill got into journalism in the first place was because of his love for storytelling, as I mentioned earlier. And although he got to do some great things in journalism and do what he loved, it was very long hours, so he was looking to try something different and moved to teaching, where he could utilize that same skill set in a different environment.
As I finished up the interview, I asked Mr. Hill some lighter questions. One of which was what his personal interests and hobbies were. As some people reading this know, Mr. Hill is a pretty talented musician, having played in a band at the school talent show last year. He also enjoys going to the movies, and watching TV shows, but he also makes room for some exciting outdoor activities including biking, hiking, and sailing. After this question, I asked Mr. Hill what class, if any, he’d like to teach in the future. He noted a number of interesting classes including journalism, a workshop class, and an audio podcasting class as his top choices.
To end this interview, I had a question that could benefit everyone here at OP and is an important question in general. What is Mr. Hill’s number one piece of advice for English students? “Read, read, read, read as much as you can, even if it’s trashy novels, even if it’s like a book about baseball, a book about tanks, a book about whatever. As long as you read, read, read, it just helps you out so much in like your vocabulary, you know, just writing ability and just being well read, just knowing stuff about you. And hopefully if you do that now, you’re going to become a lifelong reader. And it’s such a pleasure to be able to enjoy it when you’re older. Just pick up a book and just enjoy it and know how to read it.”
