FEATURES SUCCESS STORIES
ERIC WOLFFERSDORFF ’07 THE STRATEGY OF STRUGGLE Max Loos ‘07
Eric Wolffersdorff ’07 will be the first to admit that he had never really imagined himself as an English teacher. As is the case with many teachers, the profession found him more than he found it. “I’m a very introverted person,” Wolffersdorff says, which is why he didn’t expect that a career at the front of a classroom would be a good fit for him. But after a few fortunate college courses and a bit of actual experience, he knew what he wanted to do.
“I want to earn what I earn,” he says. “My parents raised me to work hard. My dad works in a factory; he’s been laid off three times, so we know the value of a dollar, we know the value of hard work.” At the same time, he felt that his time at Marquette High gave him an opportunity to apply that work ethic in new and challenging ways. “You had to work hard to do well there,” Wolffersdorff says. He recalls specifically the classes of Adam Laats and the freshman basketball coaching of Tom Persin, but the work that MUHS made him do spiritually was especially important and formational for him.
“Mr. Wolffersdorff” has been an English teacher for three years at St. Thomas More High School in Milwaukee. And in many ways, it seems he is just getting started.
“Spiritually they made us work hard,” he says. “The retreats challenged you head-on with a lot of things you hadn’t thought about as a know-it-all arrogant 16-year-old.”
The first few years of teaching are notoriously very difficult. And, things don’t seem to be letting up yet for Wolffersdorff. This year he will be teaching seven sections of English with four different preps, as well as an online course for gifted middle schoolers. There is no break once the bell rings, when he heads off to coach basketball and moderate a number of after-school activities. When he gets home, there is a lot of grading that needs to be done. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to ask him how he finds time to eat.
He was also particularly impacted by the experience of working with Al Taylor to satisfy his work-grant commitment, a service requirement of all MUHS financial aid recipients. Before Taylor made him a squad leader for one of the work-grant “summer camps,” Wolffersdorff had never been in charge of people outside of an academic or sports setting. He credits Taylor with giving him the chance to develop the confidence and leadership abilities that he relies on every day as a teacher.
“I make time for myself, but not as much as it normally would be,” he says. “But I figure now is a good chance to take advantage of these opportunities because I plan on having kids someday, and I won’t be able to do as many of these things that I can do right now.” That seems to be how Wolffersdorff operates: he does as much hard work as possible today, so he can make room for some hard work that he knows he wants to do in the future. That’s not to say that he isn’t enjoying himself, though. “When you like what you do, it’s not as much work,” he says. “I don’t mind spending 13 hours a day on it. I can have a beer in my hand, the game’s on and I’m doing some schoolwork.” Wolffersdorff picked up that work ethic at a young age. As a student at MUHS, he took the bus to school every day from the south side. At Marquette University, he took as many credits as allowed and worked as many hours as possible in the admissions office.
34 MUHS Magazine
Eric Wolffersdorff ’07 is an English teacher at St. Thomas More High School. Photos by Peter Beck