Ska, Saxophone, Teaching?

By: Tanya Soto

Touring around the world and living a rock star life sounds like the ultimate dream for many people. It was time to leave the fun and games and make the next career move for Mr. Eric Zamora.  Zamora, who was in a Ska band named Save Ferris eventually left the beloved group and turned the wheel to the direction of teaching.

“The rockstar life was not paying the bills and I ended up becoming a teacher because that was the original plan before music came into the picture. It wasn’t less of a career. I think I made an improvement in my life by becoming a teacher.” Mr.Zamora is now one of our teachers here at Tustin High. He spends his days teaching English to Seniors and running the Yearbook class. No more late nights with the band, now it’s late nights grading papers.

See you later saxophone, greetings English! “I had great English teachers in high school. They Were the teachers that created experiences in classrooms, and I wanted to continue that style. English class gives students the opportunity to socialize,  as well as talk about life and tie it into the things that we’re reading and studying.” Ending up in a more serious career doesn’t keep Mr.Zamora from enjoying himself and sending a message to his students. “Have you been to my classroom? It’s craziness. A band on stage or me in front of a classroom… it’s still English class and being a teacher allows me to show my students my personality. I’m not going to come to work and not have fun. You have to have fun here and you can still learn and do that. We’re in this together. You’re sitting in a desk for six hours of your day. Why make that challenging and boring for people?” His students agree. “I like that Mr. Zamora is creative in his teaching and he always has different activities.He’s really weird and he makes learning fun. He seems to be cracking jokes all the time,”stated Senior Jorge Marin.

zamora

Mr.Zamora not only focuses on having a good time at work, but also reflects back on past events he has experienced from being in Save Ferris. “The band was successful, but we weren’t Nirvana or Green Day. It was such a big part of my life… you develop sensors to people. We’d go to concerts and all of a sudden, I’d get phone calls from cousins, third cousins, fourth cousins. All of a sudden, I had so much family that I never knew I had, which was cool but it was apparent that they wanted to be on the guest list.”

From watching a sea of people jumping around, dancing, and singing along to songs, Mr. Zamora’s new lifestyle is observing his teenage students attaining knowledge. Mr.Zamora no longer performs melodies with his saxophone, but he now performs academic vocabulary and analyzes literature.

2 Comments Add yours

  1. Mr.Z says:

    I know that guy! Thank you for the story Tanya.

  2. jasmine espinoza says:

    Wow, that’s awesome, you should put more stories like this one they are very interesting; I REALLY LOVED it!!!!!

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