Profile: New Non-Fiction Teacher Mr. Hill

By Caden Bernstein-Lawler

Hill was still searching for a feeling of fulfillment in his career that his prior work hadn’t given him. “I was reevaluating my career path and I was kinda looking around myself thinking ‘who likes their job the most?’ and my friend [who was a teacher] could not shut up about work, it was so fulfilling,” Hill said.

He said his friend had a similar reevaluation of her life, mirroring Hill’s own reassessment. “[My friend] got into teaching after a full career in PR,” he said. “She became an English teacher, her mother died and she kinda had a life evaluation and realized that she thing that struck me about Mr. Hill almost immediately was how much joy he took, even in the limited medium of Zoom, how much joy he took with interacting with the kids,” Steinhart said.

Despite the challenges of teaching over Zoom, Hill continued on his path to becoming a teacher, and began teaching at Archie Williams High School during the 2021-22 school year before coming to Tam High to take up his curent position.

As a teacher, Hill has been trying to be the teacher he wishes he had as a struggling student.

“My experience as a student is probably a guiding light,” he said. “I try to remember my experiences of disconnection and my struggles as a teacher on the other side of the equation now.” didn’t feel any kind of life satisfaction in her career,” Hill said. This friend’s love of teaching led Hill into the profession himself.

Robby Hill is the latest teacher to join Tamalpais High’s English Department faculty. After one year of teaching at Archie Williams High School, Hill is teaching sophomore English and the Nonfiction elective. However, Hill’s path to where he is now wasn’t always straightforward.

Growing up in San Rafael, Hill faced hardships as a student. “I really struggled as a student and I have a learning disability,” he said. “I also felt like at various times in my life, very connected to school and very disconnected at other times.” Hill moved to several different schools throughout his life.

The challenges Hill faced as a student have shaped the way he approaches education as a teacher. However, becoming a teacher wasn’t always the plan.

Hill attended as a music major from Dominican College in 2012. His career took him down different paths, first working in direct service for adults with moderate-severe intellectual disabilities.

Hill started out as a student-teacher at Tam High during the 2020-21 school year. He worked with another English teacher, Jonah Steinhart, on the Nonfiction and AP Composition classes.

Steinhart described this period, when the school was still online during the height of the pandemic, as one of his own most difficult years as a teacher.

However, Steinhart noted how resilient and passionate Hill was. “One

His experience as a student directs his teaching, but Hill is also motivated by his love of literature and how it can broaden one’s understanding of others.

“[The choice to become an English teacher] was wanting to spread that love [of literature],” he said, “the flexibility of literature as a vehicle to understand other people that is not accessible in a textbook,”

Another one of Hill’s favorite aspects of being an English teacher is how he can allow students to use empathy in order to think more critically.

“I’ve been disturbed and disheartened by the lack of … capacity for critical thinking and I think that starts with education,” said Hill.

Throughout his career as a teacher, Hill will always remember his experiences as a student. He views his students as people with their own lives.

“It’s important for me to remember those things [I experienced as a student] because I want to look at my kids as whole humans, not just as students who are turning in work, and the reason why is because that’s who they are, they aren’t just students turning in work.”