In his rich, baritone voice, Lynbrook High School’s Teacher of the Year, Robert Richmond, read passages of “Brave New World” to his fifth-period European literature students the morning of April 9.
For an 83-year-old story set 600 years in the future, there are still themes that you find in today’s culture, he told his students. Most prominent among these themes is the use of technology to control society.
“‘Brave New World’ is about technology getting out of control,” Richmond said. “It’s linked to what these kids in particular are going to be doing with their lives. There’s something about teaching literature, and it’s profound connection to what it means to be a human being that I think is great.”
Lessons like that from “Brave New World” are part of the day-to-day goal for Richmond as a literary arts teacher to engender a love for the arts among so many tech-focused students.
At Lynbrook, it is not uncommon to have a classroom filled with aspiring engineers, neurosurgeons and computer programmers. One of Richmond’s students this year has been accepted early to MIT.
“This is an extraordinary high school, and these kids many of their parents are from the tech world and they have every intention of being computer programmers or engineers,” Richmond said. “So it’s doubly important for them to understand that the humanities are more than just this thing they have to get through to graduate.” And that’s why he teaches the literature that he does.
In his 30th year of teaching, Richmond was officially named Lynbrook’s teacher of the year during a board of education meeting on April 7. Each year, the Fremont Union High School District board of trustees honors one teacher from each school.
Richmond started working at Lynbrook in the fall of 2007. He began his teaching career in his hometown of Bakersfield for 16 years before also teaching in Salinas for six years at the high school level.
“For me there is something magical about sharing something essential and infinitely enriching, which literature unquestionably is, with people I care about,” Richmond said. “Great literature changes people–not just how they think but who they are.”
He is currently the English department chair and has taught literature and writing, American literature, Advanced Placement language and composition, contemporary literature and European literature.
He also advises the chess club and assisted with Model United Nations.
“I love interacting with my students, and I also have extraordinary colleagues,” Richmond said. “This is why it is such an honor and at the same time so humbling to be recognized as teacher of the year.”
Fellow English teacher and drama teacher Laurel Cohen said there are very few teachers like Richmond.
“He can teach all the technicalities of language, support it with social and cultural facts and be creative all at the same time,” Cohen said. “Students love him because he is just so diverse. Robert is passionate about education and making certain students learn, but it’s his compassion for what life brings that separates him from other teachers.”
Lynbrook senior Anand Chukka said Richmond is the kind of teacher that makes you feel very comfortable.
“Nothing is ever wrong in his class; all analysis is proper analysis,” Chukka said. “Many times after school I would go to him and ask him arbitrary questions about the texts we were reading in class, and regardless of how much work he had to do or meetings he had to attend, he was willing to sit down and entertain my questions and discuss the texts with me like an equal. It’s clear from any interaction with him that he’s truly passionate not only about literature but also about educating his students. He is definitely my favorite teacher at Lynbrook.”
Richmond was born in San Diego and raised in Bakersfield. He graduated from Brown University in 1979 with a double concentration in English and music.
In his spare time he sings in the Symphony Silicon Valley Chorale. He has been married to Stacey McCown, also a member of the Lynbrook English department, for 14 years.
