Science teacher Bob VandenBerg’s world was turned upside down when he realized that he could not, in fact, turn upside down. At least, not without puking.
As a Purdue student studying aerospace engineering, VandenBerg was surprised to find out that he suffered from a bad case of motion sickness—unfortunately, taking the “aero” option out of aerospace engineering.
“I didn’t really know what I wanted to do wanted to do, and then I got involved in coaching tangentially,” VandenBerg said.
Originally, the brief coaching job was just a favor for his uncle. VandenBerg had played basketball in high school, so he had some experience, and the job paid decently well. However, the experience also brought forth some of VandenBerg’s other interests: working with kids.
Though he hadn’t always wanted to become a teacher, VandenBerg had quite a few teachers in his family who presented exemplary role models. One such inspiring person was his dad, Robert VandenBerg Sr., who worked at Forest Hills Northern (FHN) for 32 years. VandenBerg also went to FHN for high school, getting to see the FHPS district in its earliest stages of development.
“When I was at Northern, Northern was out in the middle of nowhere because the East Beltline wasn’t developed. It was a two-lane road when I was there,” VandenBerg said. “So I’ve seen this district grow from Northern being in the middle of nowhere to these three awesome schools.”
Because of his connections to Northern, VandenBerg got to teach alongside his father and other former teachers at FHN. At first, the experience was difficult, as he called his now colleagues by their formal yet familiar “Mr. or Mrs.,” but he eventually got used to calling his former teachers by their first names.
VandenBerg got to teach alongside his dad for a few years before switching to other schools, and he has taught at every secondary school in the FHPS district (for the district, that means middle and high schools). At first, VandenBerg was not the biggest fan of the constant change of atmosphere, but he has found worth in seeing the many different educational cultures of the three FHPS factions.
“There’s value in seeing different things,” VandenBerg said. “There’s value in getting out of your comfort zone and value in taking everything you know and looking at how other people see things.”
As he has taught at every middle and high school of all three institutions for 26 years, VandenBerg can see how each school operates so differently.
Although the three schools are certainly contrasting in nature (and in victorious football state championships), he hasn’t seen many differences besides some minute variance in student cultures. However, one major difference he recognizes is the difference in traditions found in school spirit.
“Central is the oldest school. It has such ingrained traditions that Eastern doesn’t have yet,” VandenBerg said. “Eastern is developing its own traditions, but Central has been doing stuff since [before] Eastern even existed.”
Since Forest Hills Eastern is a relatively young school, having only been established in 2004, they don’t have nearly as many traditions as FHC’s own 66-year-old campus. Some of the traditions that FHC has are still being developed at Eastern. One large difference in traditions that VandenBerg has noticed is the contrasting Homecoming celebrations.
“The whole week-long celebration of Homecoming is very unique to the [FHC] building. It’s not at the other buildings. That’s a very strong tradition here,” VandenBerg said.
The meager age of two decades certainly sets Eastern apart from the other two schools, both in campus design and traditions. However, Eastern has been working hard to develop such traditions through a series of team-building exercises.
Through various collaborative challenges and games like fitting a dozen students on a 6×6 slab of wood, balancing on two wires, and a classic game of dodgeball, students are able to connect by challenging each other and growing together. By being a supervisor of these challenges, he is able to witness the creation of traditions and memories to last a lifetime.
“I’ve been very fortunate through my years to have just wonderful students. I still keep in touch with some of them,” VandenBerg said. “Some of the kids I first taught are now in their mid to late 30s. They have families; they have three, four, five kids. It makes me feel really old, but It’s a really cool job.”
