Erik Hamerstrom is a Security Guard and former English teacher at Prospect. In honor of teacher appreciation week, we held a Q+A with him to learn more about his experiences at Prospect as a campus security officer and former English teacher. Tomorrow, May 7th, check back because we’ll be putting out our Q+A with Natalie Kronforst, and Friday, May 8th, we’ll be putting up our Q+A with Michael Higdon, a physics teacher at Prospect.
Q: “How long have you been teaching here for?”
A: “I’ve been working at Prospect since 2002, and I’ve been in district since 1995.”
Q: “What’s your craziest teaching experience?”
A: “One time we had a student who used to go out to the bathroom for a little bit of a length of time sometimes, like he used to tour a little bit but he always said he didn’t, used to take a lap or two. We had a group of students in class who were supposed to go look at the homecoming decorations real quick, I told them we would. So we waited for him to come back, he didn’t come back and we were like alright we’re going to see him on the way. So we left to go do the tour: we went down one stairway, walked around and came back to the room through the other stairway and saw that the hallway was decorated. When we got back to class- the student in the bathroom had come to class and we weren’t there and he didn’t know where we were. So we all sat down and got back to doing our classwork and the student came in, and I told them, “When he shows up, act like we weren’t gone. You know, act like we were here the whole time.” And the student came in and he was like, “Where were you guys!?” And we were all like, “What are you talking about?” And the student goes, “I came in here and you guys weren’t here.” And we’re all like, “What?!” and all the students were like, “What are you talking about? We’ve been here the whole time.” The student totally thought he had lost his mind, it was so funny. Because he came to the room and there was no one there- and he had no idea we left, and five minutes later he came back and we were all there and he couldn’t believe it. He thought- honestly he thought he’d lost his mind. It was so funny, the whole class didn’t let him know until the next time.”
Q: “What was your favorite memory of teaching here?”
A: “My favorite memory is always working with students – getting to know students. Getting to see them grow as well, and see them move up the ladder.”
