Julia Langeway, writer in the THS Newspaper Club, met with and interviewed two of our extraordinary teachers at Terryville High School. Here are the questions she asked, and the sometimes quirky, and strangely goat-related, responses.

Questions with Mrs. Karen Robillard, English teacher

Before working here, what was the most interesting job you’ve worked?

I worked for a few months at a jewelry store. It was very interesting to learn how jewelry was made, and how they select the stones for each piece.

What drew you to THS?

I was teaching at a private school previously, and wanted to return to the public sector.

What is your proudest moment at THS?

It will be at this year’s graduation- this was the first class I taught when I came to THS, and I will be so proud as I watch them walk across the stage.

Any favorite line from a movie?

“Oh fishy fishy fishy fish… and it went… wherever I did gooo” from Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life.

Are you messy or organized?

Messy.

Least favorite food?

Squash.

If you were to write a book about yourself, what would you name it?

“I Can’t Seem To Recall.”

What has been the most important innovation you have witnessed in your lifetime?

Smartphones. Although they’re not necessarily the most life saving or noble invention, I would say that this technology has had a striking impact on most people’s everyday life, and that they are the cause of the most recent leap in various social advancements.

What is your favorite book?

A Little Princess by Frances Hodgsen Burnett

What is the most important thing you have learned in the last five years?

I’ve learned that it is important to be as kind to myself as I am to others.

 

Questions with Mr. Andrew Audibert, Mathematics teacher

Before working here, what was the most interesting job you’ve worked?

The most interesting “job” I worked wasn’t official in any way. I volunteered at a farm across the street from my college. They had sheep and goats and chickens and a llama and a compost pile that was probably about twenty feet long and two to three feet deep. I learned that chickens are really twitchy and roosters are aggressive. I learned that turkeys are monumentally stupid. I learned that goats are really fun. They’re a lot like smarter dogs that have horns. Boy goats also stink, but not right away. I would get back to my room and realize much later that I smelled like a goat. Not a good thing. The most interesting thing that happened on the job, though, was when I helped give the llama medicine. At first I had to try to hold his head in what I might call either a loving headlock or a very aggressive hug. Then I had to try to put a really long syringe in his mouth to give him the medicine. Long story short, a blind-folded llama spit on me with amazing accuracy from fifteen feet away, got mad, broke out of his constraints and almost seriously injured a few other helpers. Thankfully, no animals or people were harmed in the making of this story. That was my first time at the farm.

What drew you to THS?

I’m back at THS because my goal after high school was to become a math teacher at a high school like THS where I would eventually teach calculus. Time for another goal!

What was your proudest moment at ths?

My proudest moment at THS was actually from when I was a student. I was playing a knight in a play, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and my prop horse broke. It was broomstick horse and the broomstick was coming out of the back of his neck and it looked like his head had been chopped off. The audience was laughing and laughing and I had no idea why. When I finally noticed, I decided to roll with it and said, “My, horsey, you’re looking down,” and the whole full house audience erupted in laughter. They were definitely laughing with me, not at me. It was a good moment.

Any favorite line from a movie?

I didn’t really have one before, but after watching the new Avengers (Infinity War), I hope to one day be able to quote, in context, what Thor says when leaving the Guardians of the Galaxy, “I bid you good luck and farewell, morons.”

Are you messy or organized?

I have what most people call “organized chaos.” I would describe myself as tidy but cluttered. For example, when I eat I seldom leave any crumbs anywhere. If you hadn’t watched me eat in a certain spot, you would never know anyone had eaten there. Is that weird? It’s a little weird.

Least favorite food?

Fish are friends, not food. And they’re pungent. Yuck city.

If you were to write a book about yourself, what would you name it?

My book would be called, “Students are Responsible for Missed Work: How Teaching Taught Me about Motivation”.

What has been the most important innovation you have witnessed in your lifetime?

Innovation is a dime a dozen these days, so it is difficult to pin down any one. I would describe the most important innovation in my lifetime as more of a movement. It’s called Big Data. We are transitioning into an entirely digitized world (not in the sense of The Matrix but something like a futuristic science-fiction world). Enormous amounts of information are being accrued about every one of us all the time for the purposes of individualized marketing, predictive profiling (the likelihood that we will behave in a certain way), and even precision/individualized medicine. More and more people worry about what this loss of privacy will lead to (such as what happened with Cambridge Analytica). It does raise a lot of interesting ethical questions. When you take your tinfoil hat off, it looks like an entirely new age for humanity!

What is your favorite movie and book?

My favorite movie is called The Big Lebowski. It’s a comedy/mystery that deals with obsession, denial, and possibly even PTSD. And rugs. Rugs that tie rooms together. My favorite book is probably Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. I found the book endlessly fascinating in its exploration of human evolution, scientific evolution, and the importance of what Ian Malcolm says in Jurassic Park: “You were so obsessed with figuring out if you could that you never stopped to ask yourself if you should.”

What is the most important thing you have learned in the last five years?

In the last five years I’d say that the most important thing I’ve learned is the importance of truly listening to others. I was never a bad listener, per se, but I was never purposeful either. Most arguments, especially when it comes to things about politics or religion, amount to people doing their absolute best to profess every last bit of information about their point as possible in the shortest amount of time. We seek to win an argument, as opposed to resolving it. Recently I heard that a good debate cannot take place unless both sides can argue for both sides. If we don’t know the why for how someone feels then we lose any meaning of the what. Context means everything. Smart people may be smart but not wise. Anyway, the most sage advice I ever received came from a gentleman I worked with where I tutor. He said to me, “Andrew, do you know what everybody’s favorite word is? Their name.” If you show someone that you are at least willing to hear them, then they will usually pay that back in kind.

tl;dr: Why can’t we all just get along?!