Each year, Wayland High School has to say goodbye to a few of its beloved staff members. This year, the WHS community will be losing Mike Rumrill, Emily Norton, Dan Gavin and Bayard Klimasmith. Each Wayland faculty member has had an individual impact that will last for years to come.
Mike Rumrill
Mike Rumrill’s love and talent for art brought him to Wayland High School where he has been teaching art for the past 38 years. He has taught a multitude of classes including Art History, Art 1, Art 2, Art 3, Art 4, Drawing, Ceramics, Metalworks and 2D and 3D Design. After nearly four decades at WHS, Rumrill is retiring.
What is your favorite class to teach?
My favorite class to teach is like asking me the difference between an apple and an orange. They’re all good for different reasons. I like the kids in ninth grade just coming out of middle school because they’re full of energy. I also like teaching the upperclassmen because they’re a little bit more sophisticated in their approach.
What are your plans for retirement?
I have absolutely no idea. I’m gonna wait and see what happens. [I’m] probably gonna find a job doing something else, but it’s just like a graduating senior, you know? You’ve got your life in front of you, and you get to start over, and it’s kind of fun.
It’s really nice to know that you’ve touched somebody’s life in some sort of way.
I think the thing that sticks out in my mind the most is when I get a student who comes back after a number of years and they remember some little strange thing that I said along the way that probably didn’t mean that much to me, but it meant a lot to that person. And it’s really nice to know that you’ve touched somebody’s life in some sort of way. I think that’s part of what teaching is about anyway, because it’s a sharing experience. You’re sharing what you know with other people, so when people come back and say “I remember something” or “something you did meant a lot to me,” that’s probably the thing that I’ll remember most.
Any final thoughts you would like to share with the Wayland community?
Well, I suppose I’ve been doing this so long that when I think about it, I’ve been [doing] this longer than anything I’ve done in my entire life. Longer than my childhood, longer than my marriage, older than my kids. It’s really been my life for 38 years, so it’s going to be very hard to leave.
Emily Norton
Emily Norton is retiring this year after her 29-year career as a science teacher. During her ten years at Wayland High School, Norton taught three levels of biology along with creating and teaching the Environmental Science course.
What started your love of teaching?
I’ve always been interested in nature. I remember when I was a little girl one of the first things I saved money for from my allowance was a microscope. I think [a love of science has] been in me since the very beginning, and when I took my first science course in junior high school, and the teacher brought out microscopes for us to look through, it just clicked with me.
Over the years, what has been your favorite class to teach?
Probably Environmental Science, mainly because I think it’s the course that has the most likelihood of changing the way people live and having the greatest impact on people and the world because if people understand the effect of their actions, maybe they can make better decisions.
What are your plans for retirement?
With my free time I’m going to farm, and in the past I did foster care for the MSPCA [Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals], and I’m looking to help out at the Tufts Wildlife Clinic. I may start a nonprofit group that does more of what we did this spring where we built the wildlife fencing along Route 27, so I’ll get involved in a lot more environmental action. So I won’t stop teaching, but I just won’t be teaching in a classroom.
What will you miss most about Wayland High School?
I’ll miss the enthusiasm of the students. I think that working with teenagers helps keep you young with the amount of excitement and energy that they have.
Dan Gavin
After a total of five years at Wayland High School, from 2002 to 2005 and 2009 to 2011, Dan Gavin is moving on from his job as a history teacher. During his time in Wayland, Gavin taught history and civics courses to students of all grades.
Why did you become a history teacher?
There is such a power that teachers have, and they can either abuse it or use it. I think this is the type of career path that has the potential to really influence a kid. My main thing was, if you can remember a lot of the little facts of history that’s fantastic, but what I really think is important is the kids learn to like learning and also learn how to be good people. I think there’s an ethic that history teachers can teach that is important. And honestly, the other piece is just to learn how to find your voice.
What are your plans for the future?
I really would love to get back to education, but I really just don’t know. I’m going into finance as part of my five year plan, but the ultimate goal for me, I’ve got to get back to humanitarian work. What I’d like to do is get involved in third world economic development. I would love to get involved in that microfinancing world, pulling people out of poverty essentially by giving them small loans to work with. My ultimate goal would be to get back into education. That’s one track, or I’ll pursue the microfinancing track, but either way I’ve got to get back to humanitarian work.
What I really think is important is the kids learn to like learning and also learn how to be good people.
What’s one thing you’re going to miss about Wayland High School?
Oh that’s easy, the kids. I love the faculty, and I love history, but it’s not that. As I always say, you’re not teaching history, you’re teaching kids. So they’ve always got to come first and foremost, so hands down it’s always the kids. That’s an easy one.
Any final thoughts you would like to share with the Wayland community?
I would like to see kids get out of the Wayland community and start to expand beyond the town borders in terms of their outreach. What I do hope continues in the school is some of the civic activism, that kids are starting to see that Wayland is only a tiny microcosm of the global community and that we see you guys, through history and social sciences and other classes, start to expand and reach out to other communities outside of Wayland. It’s easy to stay within this bubble, so the one thing I’d love to see kids do more and more, and one thing I hope that continues in all the classes is projects that take your web and cast a large net across the globe. I would say, expand beyond the Wayland borders. There’s a larger community out there, and hopefully you guys can do it. Honestly, don’t change. I love this school, I think it’s a fantastic school system, and the kids in it are a reflection of that, and I’m gonna be really really sad to leave.
Bayard Klimasmith
Bayard Klimasmith, a WHS alum, returned two years ago to step in as the Interim Assistant Principal while Allyson Mizoguchi was on maternity leave.
What made you interested in applying here?
I liked my education here a lot. And there’s bits and pieces of it you fail to appreciate until you leave here and you either see other high schools, as I did as a teacher, or you go to college, and you realize what’s so special about Wayland. One thing that’s really major is that here, it’s cool to do school… Socially speaking, it’s very important in Wayland to succeed in school, and that isn’t the case everywhere. The other thing I really loved was the degree of freedom that we afford students. The free blocks, no bathroom passes, all of that, which definitely exists in other schools. It’s a place that fundamentally respects young people rather than seeing them as objects to be managed. When the position opened up I just jumped at it.
Do you have any plans for future work?
I want to eventually be a leader of my own school. I don’t need to do that in any particular fast pace; I’ve been very happy being an assistant principal. I think eventually you’ll see me as a principal of a school, [and] it will probably be in a more urban setting. I’ve got a baby at home, and I’m perfectly happy working 60 hours a week, that’s enough for right now.
Any final thoughts you would like to share with the Wayland community?
I think we walk a tightrope in Wayland. On one hand, preparing students for the freedoms of their young adult life, we give students a great degree of freedom. I think there’s a tension there, and many students embrace that beautifully, but there’s definitely a tension where students take that as entitlement. Rather than people seeing that as a privilege or as being lucky to have that, they instead see that as something that is their right. And you see it a lot in the senior activities, where the seniors aren’t behaving like the black belts, they’re behaving like the white belts. They really ought to be the leaders. So I think there’s an opportunity in Wayland for us to build a model where we accrue more responsibility along with privilege. I wish there was more opportunity that wasn’t just about seniors planning events, but rather shaping curriculum and culture. And you see that happen in pockets where students are stepping up and owning school culture. You see that in all sorts of other student leadership stuff. I’d love to have more of that.
Sam-e Frawley • Jun 15, 2011 at 12:09 AM
i have had mr. rumril, mrs. norton, and mr. gavin has helped me with senior projects. the three of them are really great teachers whom i appreciate! and mr. klimasmith, although not my teacher has helped me out before. thank you all!