Some teachers are so objectively awesome that you know their influence will stay with you for years: Mr. Weber is one of those teachers for me.
It was my first day of my sophomore year, and I was in my English class. My teacher walked in and introduced himself as Mr. Weber. He was very eager to get to know all of his students and was extremely welcoming with a smile. Since then, I have taken two more classes with him, and he has done nothing but improve each time!
Mr. Eric Weber is a teacher at William Henry Harrison High school. He teaches English, Creative Writing, Public Speaking, and Classical Mythology. He also occasionally plays drums for the school musicals. Weber said that the best thing about teaching is that he gets to work with students and the worst part is testing.
He rides his bike to school and home everyday. He says it prevents wear and tear on his car, and it’s fun! Luckily, he lives close to school so he isn’t biking for hours back and forth.
He has been teaching for twenty-nine years and will be retiring after the 2024-2025 school year. What retirement means to him is that he can do whatever he wants, when he wants.
Weber wasn’t always interested in being an English teacher at first. He started out as a music major and a couple years after that he decided he didn’t want to be a band director. He flipped a coin to see if he was going to be a History or English teacher, and English won. He teaches normal English classes, but also several electives. I asked him about the extra classes and he said, “The English electives are just icing on the cake.” He added on the electives later but are some of his favorite things to teach.
But what makes him so great? Weber has impacted my life tremendously. No matter what, Weber comes into class everyday with a positive attitude. He’s never rude or yells at his students. The little comments and side jokes he makes are the best part about his teaching when you pay attention and catch them.
He is very caring and would help you with absolutely anything you need or are struggling with. Weber is one of those English teachers that truly make a difference in their subject. He makes it so much fun and so much more intriguing than any other English teacher that I have had. I would have trouble focusing in his class because the students were a little crazy, and he would let me sit in the hallway to get my work done.
I was really anxious one morning to the point where I was extremely disoriented and not walking straight. His room was the first room I went to. He completely distracted me from whatever I was anxious about by talking about a completely different subject and showed me pictures of his granddaughter.
In class he would always be bubbly even if he was having a bad day. He would be energetic and still make everyone laugh. It was never a dull moment in class with Weber.
In Creative Writing we have journals and you can write whatever you want in them and I wrote about things I was struggling with, and he left a side note to just relax and breathe. I didn’t know that those were the words I needed to hear until I read them and cried. The little side notes were probably the best part of writing in a journal. There is also another good thing, he doesn’t tell anyone what you write and keeps them to himself.
I greet him every morning with a good morning and he says it back and even sometimes asks how I am. Yes, it is something small but that little thing makes such a difference in my day. If I am having a bad morning it still makes me smile hearing him ask how I am because it shows he cares. There have been many more great experiences with Weber, but those are by far the most impactful ones.
When he’s not in his classroom, Weber loves to travel. He has traveled all over the US, in fact. In 1991, he drove out west to visit the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. He said it was very cool.
He has been to the UK three times and each time he has stayed in London for a few days. His favorite place there is Scotland. He took students to Europe on a tour in 2000. They went to London, Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam as well as some French countryside and WWII D-Day sites in Normandy. He thought it was a very cool trip.
He mostly likes to go to the Appalachian Mountains. He likes to go to the mountains a lot. While he is there he likes to hike, fly fish, mountain bike and kayak. He mentioned that he doesn’t travel if there is nothing to do outside. The whole trip out west was to see the national parks.
Overall, Mr. Eric Weber is a great teacher who makes school more exciting. We wish him the best when he eventually retires and hope he has a great last year next year!
