Hunter

Hunter, as his students endearingly called him, was an off-beat old man with bushy, white hair, a nutty grin, and a glass eye. When I first began working with him through my high school drama program, I used to gaze past his spectacles to try to figure out which eye was actually looking at me when we spoke. By the time I became a Thespian and neared graduation, Hunter's glass eye was just another one of the idiosyncrasies that I loved about him.

Hunter taught at Sterling High School for 35 years. In that time, he was the only speech teacher in the building, and because speech was a graduation requirement, he had every single student to go through Sterling High School in his class for at least one semester. Because he secretly liked the reputation of being a crazy, stubborn, and disagreeable teacher, he preferred to think that students had somewhat of a negative attitude about having to take his class. However, the truth is that Hunter was the type of teacher that students are drawn to and that many have a relationship with long after they leave his classroom.

It was not until I began my own teaching career that I began to identify the specific things about Hunter that made him a great educator. On the human side, he was a solid character with firm (but not always mainstream) values who shared the unique person he was with his students. He told anecdotes from his life in the middle of his lessons, or maybe he taught lessons in the middle of his anecdotes. Either way, as an identity-forming adolescent, I appreciated and respected a teacher who was not only a genuine person but who also let that person shine through in everything he did.

For a man who liked the world to think he was reclusive, Hunter loved people, and he loved sharing himself with others. He loved for his students to visit him, and many did for years after they left SHS. Entering his small, soundproof office was never something you did when you were in a rush because Hunter could tell stories for hours on end, and he had just as much time to listen to whatever might be on your mind.

I could never get through any interaction with Hunter without hearing his wild, high-pitched laughter and being playfully called a "twink." No matter what budgeting difficulty the district had thrown at him or how his personal health was, he made an effort to smile and say, "Great!" when asked how he was doing. He might not admit it, but he recognized his role as an educator in setting the tone for his students both inside and outside the classroom.

As an instructor, Hunter used different teaching methods that made his lessons varied and interesting. Somewhat atypical of the 35-year veteran teacher, he was always telling us about new research in the fields of education and communication, and he applied what he learned to his teaching. It was in Hunter's speech class that I first learned about different types of learners. In addition to teaching us how to write and deliver speeches, Hunter varied his curriculum and taught us interesting things that he felt would help us in life. He taught us about such things as reading non-verbal cues and focusing and relaxation techniques. He had high standards for performance in his class, and he assessed students based on their individual ability, potential, and improvement.

He encouraged his students to develop qualities that would help them interact with others. He started each class by greeting and shaking hands with every student in the room. He encouraged us to express ourselves freely and to back up our opinions, but he also taught us to take responsibility for our actions. Hunter's students were free to communicate in any manner they saw fit, but he had a jar in which students who chose to use profane language must deposit coins. Sometimes because of the passion and excitement with which Hunter communicated with his students, he had to deposit some change into his jar himself.

Hunter was a generous and caring person and a talented educator, and knowing him is one of the main reasons that I chose to become a teacher. He passed away on May 2, 2002, near the end of my first year of teaching.

-- Tammy Tuck, American University