by Adam Colbert
After eight years of teaching at Hudson High, Physics and Astronomy teacher Robert Van Buren has decided to retire.
Before Van Buren ever wanted to become a teacher, he was an engineer at Raytheon in his early years out of college. There, Van Buren was in charge of training the employees to learn the new programming system. His passion for teaching was born there.
“The idea that we change from not understanding something to understanding something, and the growth of education is pretty miraculous. Whatever I can do to bring that about, I think it’s a good thing.”
The next chapter in his life was written when he took a break from engineering and went back to school to become a teacher and found a job teaching physics at Hopkinton High School.
“I was young at the time. My wife and I were newly married, we didn’t have any children, so we didn’t have a big need for a lot of cash. We really enjoyed the time off, and I enjoyed the experience of teaching,” says Van Buren.
Van Buren says he loves working with people and the subject that he teaches. “[Teaching] is a good fit. It’s like a bunch of positives lined up in a row that work for me.”
After eight years at Hopkinton, Van Buren found himself accepting a programming job at a new company that his student’s father started. He had learned programming after playing around with the Apple 2 at Hopkinton.
From there Van Buren found himself back at Raytheon, but this time for his software skills. Twenty-five years later, he found the right time to settle down and get back to teaching.
“Basically it was just the [business] trips that I had to take…they were so far and so long. I got tired of the travel and the commute, so I decided it was the right time to get back into teaching.”
Since coming back to teaching, Van Buren has made himself well known for the Haunted Physics Lab, the crazy projects he builds with his own hands, and his role as lead guitarist in the band Staff Infection.
“Mr. Van Buren shows a lot of passion when he’s teaching, and it shows with all the projects he does with his classes,” says astronomy and physics student Shane Matheson.
“He loves science. He’s always doing something that has to do with science either at the school, at home or even when we go out. He’ll figure out a way, if he learned something new, to work it into his lesson to show the kids something new,” says teacher and friend Paul D’Alessandro. “He finds ways to make [the curriculum] fresh and new every year to make it interesting,” he adds.
Some of Van Buren’s personal touches to his classes include videos, photographs and music that he shares with the class to keep the students engaged in the subject matter.
“I like to collect songs, mostly rock n’ roll songs, that have some theme that hooks up with the subject matter in the class,” says Van Buren. “Plus it’s more likely that the student will pay attention if you use a medium like that,” he adds.
Van Buren is a big music fan and was in a band throughout high school and college but had to stop once he got into the working world. When he started at Hudson in 2008, he met other teachers with the same musical passion as him including D’Alessandro and former Hudson High teacher Brian Daniels. Once they were challenged by the students to a “battle of the bands” for the Hudson Talent Show, so they came together and formed the band Staff Infection.
With Van Buren on lead guitar, D’Alessandro on bass, Daniels on vocals and others, they were motivated to win the friendly competition with the students. Within the first few months of practice, they learned about 12 songs together(all covers). They were starting to make real music and decided to not compete in the competition, but instead serve as house band that would play in the end as the voters would vote for the competition. “The battle turned into a concert,” as D’Alessandro puts it.
Since then, the band has played at numerous restaurants and events. Van Buren’s favorite place to play at is Willicker’s Restaurant Club in Shrewsbury. His favorite song to play with the band is “White Room” by Cream or anything from Eric Clapton and Tom Petty.
Besides music, Van Buren has a passion for engineering and building. He is currently rebuilding and repairing his son’s 100-year-old Victorian home. He has even made his own archery range at his house.
However, his most impressive projects happen at school with the help of D’Alessandro and the wood shop. His resume includes a five-foot-high Jacobs Ladder and a 14-foot-long wind tunnel.
Most of his projects have been for the benefit of the Haunted Physics Lab, which he took over in October 2007. The first year, 50 people came to the event. Since then, Van Buren and others have been helping the event grow by adding stations to the event. In his final year, Van Buren predicted that nearly 250 people came to the event.
“It’s the right time for me because of the reality of working in the public school system with the demands placed on teachers by the Department of Education,” explains Van Buren. “I’ll be happy to be free from that,” he adds.
Van Buren expressed his unhappiness with the Department of Education for what he called “unnecessary demands placed on teachers,” such as “insanely overcomplicated evaluation systems.” Van Buren believes that things should be kept simple. According to Van Buren, that is not happening. He believes there is too much time being spent on the new evaluation system.
Another disappointment Van Buren expressed was the poor balance of compliments and criticism coming from the evaluation system. “You want a good mix of the good and the bad; you don’t just want to focus on the bad.”
Lastly, Van Buren believes that the equipment and teaching environments are not supportive of the learning material. “We are not set up in the science department for a very good lab environment. We don’t have enough desks and equipment to optimize the process of education here.”
“I think it is a counterproductive situation right now. I hope some of those disconnects can be addressed, solved and fixed so that teachers in the future can have the same experience I had in my early years here at Hudson High.”
Despite his frustration with these things, Van Buren enjoyed his experience at Hudson High.
“It’s the family environment whereby you have a faculty that supports each other, and you have a student body that are really nice kids,” says Van Buren. “It’s sort of like a family.”
One thing Van Buren has learned from teaching is that “you never really know anyone’s real capability.” When a student exceeds expectations, Van Buren feels “hope for the future, for people in general and it also gives you a sense of joy because you see someone feel better about themselves. It’s just a good feeling all around.”
And that is one feeling Van Buren will always remember and appreciate from teaching.
