Broncos return to teach in a diverse range of subjects
By Sean Harris ’11
THE ROUNDUP
Armed with coffee mugs and red pens, the teaching staff of Brophy play an integral role in the promise to make Brophy a college preparatory experience.
They should know all about this promise; after all, some of them went to Brophy.
Out of the about 80 faculty members at Brophy, 15 are alumni who once wrote essays but now grade them.
Teachers like Mr. Tom Danforth ’78, Mr. John Damaso ’97 and The Roundup’s own adviser Mr. Mica Mulloy ’99 are all former Brophy students.
At a school like Brophy, the seniors in “most likely to become Brophy teachers” category in the yearbook actually have a good chance of that happening.
What inspired these teachers to come back to Brophy following graduation?
For English teacher Mr. Steve Smith ’96 it was always on his mind.
“I actually worked at a public school for four or five years,” Mr. Smith said. “It was always in the back of my mind to come back and be a teacher, but I wanted to make sure that I could actually teach first.”
Mr. Andy Schmidbauer ’88 had a similar experience following his college graduation.
“It’s funny because when I was in college I never actually wanted to teach,” Mr. Schmidbauer said. “I thought like a lot of people when I was at school I thought teaching was below me. I spent two months in Costa Rica after I graduated from college and I taught English…and really fell in love with teaching. When I came back from Costa Rica I started taking education classes and I thought if I wanted to teach…I couldn’t think of any other place that I’d rather teach.”
Both agree that Brophy fulfills the role as a college prep school.
“I know it fulfills its promise because I went to college after I graduated from Brophy and it was 10 times easier than Brophy ever was.” Mr. Smith said. “I felt 100 percent prepared for all of my classes it was extremely easy for me to do well in college given the fact that I went to Brophy.”
Mr. Schmidbauer said he hopes he is helping students to have that same success.
“I would like to think that I challenge students in such a way that they are required to do work on their own,” Mr. Schmidbauer said. “I would hope that I’m doing that.”