TIM HIRSCH ’95
Passing On the Lessons of Good Teaching • 471 Williston Northampton alumni currently work in all levels of education including at least one independent school headmaster, and many associate professors • 7 alumni currently work at their alma mater
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For Tim Hirsch ’95, the experience of an education at The Williston Northampton School has positively impacted many areas of his life: the supportive community helped him through a time of personal tragedy and the strong academic program has led to success in his still-evolving career. Tim entered Williston as a seventh grader in search of outstanding academics and a strong athletic program. He graduated six years later with a solid intellectual foundation and friendships that will stay strong for decades. While any Williston student can experience the caring community life of the school, for Tim that community support was particularly important during his senior year when his mother passed away after battling breast cancer. Williston was “a great place to be” at such a difficult time, Tim recalls. “My friends and teachers really got me through.” Having missed an important soccer game to attend his mother’s funeral, Tim was touched to find that his teammates had saved the game ball, signed it, and dropped it off at his house. “The friends I made were some of the best parts of Williston,” Tim says. His fellow alumni are still some of his best friends, and come from locales as far-flung as Harlem and Bermuda, as well as nearby Easthampton. Even now he keeps in regular touch with these friends, and they get together often on holidays. In addition to the relationships with friends, teachers, and coaches, Williston’s academics gave Tim a strong foundation for future achievement. “There are things from ninth grade English that I still use today, such as the elements of a persuasive essay,” he says. After Williston, he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, where he majored in psychology. While college was a challenging time of transition in some ways, he enjoyed the academics and felt well prepared because of his time at Williston. At Penn, a class called Legal Aspects of Health Care fed his growing interest in law, so after working as a paralegal Tim entered law school at Boston College. After graduating, he was successful as a young lawyer, earning judicial clerkships with the Massachusetts Appeals Court, with a federal judge in New Hampshire, and working at both
“The idea of being a teacher was always in the back of my head,” says Tim. He is looking forward to “affecting my students as my teachers did at Williston.” large and small private firms. But he gradually developed the feeling that he wanted something different out of his career. “The idea of being a teacher was always in the back of my head,” Tim says, in large part because he enjoyed being a student and has such admiration for his Williston teachers. In law school, some of his favorite classes were about the history of law and government, so Tim decided to pursue a master’s degree in order to teach history. He is looking forward to “affecting my students as my teachers did at Williston.” Now enrolled at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell, Tim is involved in a service learning project with the children of Cambodian immigrants and refugees. He teaches them the often violent and tragic history of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, which many of the children’s parents experienced but don’t want to talk about. “It gives me practice teaching,” Tim says, “and it’s important for kids to help them learn about their identity.” Based on this experience, Tim says, “I definitely made the right career choice.” Ultimately, Tim would like to teach and also coach, pursuing the same type of multi-faceted career for which he so admires his Williston teachers. Hiring motivated and inspiring teachers is also one of the main reasons that Tim advocates for supporting Williston through the Annual Fund. He also cites the need for continued scholarship offerings. “Financial aid helps promote diversity—all kinds of diversity—at the school,” Tim states. “This improves the campus as a whole.” Studying history has taught him the importance of various perspectives, and he feels strongly that having different views in a classroom enriches everyone. From great sports memories to solid friendships to the ever-useful English essay, even a history teacher may agree that many of the lessons learned and opportunities created at Williston are timeless.