New Teacher Profile: English Teacher Mr. Greene

When you think of your average high school English teacher, you probably wouldn’t picture a long-haired man armed with a dragon puppet strutting through the halls. You probably also wouldn’t believe he set fire to himself in a canoe, but, that is one of our new high school English teachers, Mr. Roderick Greene. 

Greene grew up in a “very blue-collar family”, as he described it, dreaming of attending a university– but he never knew what for. In the earlier stages of his life, he aspired to be a writer. However, at 13, he discovered his love for teaching. 

“At a summer camp I went to at 13, I was immediately hired as a camp counselor when typically you had to be 16,” Greene says.

In addition to this early experience, Greene crafted his teaching pedagogy based on the teachers he had growing up.

“I guess it’s a mix of a lot of really bad teachers when I was in school and I was aware that I had the ability to light break stuff down and make it understandable to take things apart,” he says.

Greene began teaching in 2002 in Vancouver, which is located in British Columbia, Canada, where he was born and raised. After 10 years, he moved to Wisconsin. 

“Most differences [between school in Vancouver and school here] are very subtle. We don’t have a study hall there. We don’t have very specific courses. You’ve got your Myths and Legends courses whereas back home individual teachers might incorporate those kinds of things into the general English classes,” he says.

Besides teaching students English lessons, Greene also provides advice for his students for their future pursuits.

“Back home, teachers say if you want to be a writer, be a teacher. You can write in your off-season. I’ve tried really hard to encourage students who are into the Arts to go into the Arts and understand you can make a living as a writer. You can be a writer, a musician, a painter, whatever it is that you want to be. You just have to accept that you’re going to have a different life from what people think of normal. You might not be making money off these things right away, but it doesn’t mean you can’t still pursue these things.”

Some of his former students took his advice to heart. In fact, two who are currently in the music industry keep Greene updated on their progress in their artistic endeavors.

You might have seen Greene around the hall of our school or even in your own classroom with a puppet in his hand—or hand in his puppet—and many of us wonder, why? Dragon (the dragon puppet) was gifted to his step-grandson as a Christmas present. When he picked up that puppet for the very first time, it immediately had a voice and so, Dragon was born. 

“I’m not the puppet, you’re the puppet!” Dragon says.

He does an Excel session every Friday that is called a conversation with Mr. Greene and dragon.

Dragon was first brought to school for his English 4 students to re-envision a new North—or North 2.0 in which students get the education they desire versus a curriculum handed down through generations. He found that kids in the United States were very reluctant to talk during class but when he brought this puppet into class, his students were more responsive.  

Greene says, “I asked my students, ‘When did learning stop being fun?’ Many of the kids said kindergarten.”

Hence, he wants to create a North 2.0 where learning becomes fun again.

Lastly, he would like to impart some advice to the students of Oshkosh North.

“High school is important, and the relationships we have here will stay with us throughout our lives. We will remember in our forties the things we did right, the things we did wrong. But don’t allow yourself to be defined by those things. Remember that you never ‘become’ anything, but you are always becoming something new. Every day you are becoming something new, and that doesn’t stop.”