How often do you meet a lifelong teacher who frequently describes his career path as fun — so much so that he’s still in the game, even after retiring from full-time classroom teaching?
 
Robert (Rob) Orr ’76 followed his parents (John Orr ’47 and Lenore Meyer Orr ’47) and older brother (John ’73) to George School, and continued paving the family path there for his younger brother (Gary ’79). He enrolled after middle school, as a student “whose primary claim to fame was having been in the audio-visual club,” and emerged with experiences and skills he never anticipated.

“The education I got at George School, the connections I had with teachers and with peers, was life-changing,” said Rob. “I came out with three varsity sports — which had not been on my radar screen — and I was in a play, was part of the stage craft and fairly good at the coursework.”

Rob was accepted to Duke University on a Navy scholarship and earned a bachelor’s degree in zoology and animal biology. But during a brief stint in ROTC, he realized he wanted to teach — and that the Navy wasn’t the place to stack up the credentials for it. He bowed out.
 
Right out of college, when Rob’s former GS biology teacher asked if he’d like to apply for an open position as a science teacher at the school, he did — and nabbed it. 

“I’d gotten my dream job in 1980, at age 22,” Rob marveled, “and stayed there for 20 years. I was the only new face in the science department; they’d all taught while I was a student. I realized I needed to step up my game and keep up with these folks who’d been doing this for 15, 20 years.” 

Once Rob had matched his colleagues’ tenure at GS and earned stripes of his own, he learned a few lessons of his own as well. 

“The most critical thing that high school students need to understand is that in a given year, they have between six and 12 professional, experienced adults whose only focus is them becoming the best version of themselves they can be,” he said. “That we are in their corner. And by the time they finish George School, two dozen people have been in that position with them. Then they can potentially share and teach the collaboration and empathy for others” that they learned at George School. 

Rob believes the small classes at GS and the school leadership’s deep trust in its teachers set them up for success. There, he continued to develop skills and flourished, enriched with the freedom to teach in ways he felt were most beneficial to students. 

The school “empowers teachers to be more than just film strip-projector lessons,” he said. “That’s a very different workplace than I think you’re ever going to find. Those are the norms that say we’re all in this, we all buy into the enterprise, we’re all helping to mentor and steer students who are becoming adults. And that’s why it’s a hell of a fun career.”

In March of 1999, at the doorstep of 20 years at GS, the Orrs decided to relocate the family to Louisville, Kentucky. Rob’s wife and family moved first, allowing him time to sell their house and finish out the following school year, then he joined them. Two years later, they went on to Vancouver, Washington. Rob joined the science faculty at Oregon Episcopal School and retired after 21 years, in 2023.

Today, Rob’s classroom audience has been turned on its ear: After teaching for 43 years, it’s gone from teenagers to adults aged 60 through 90. Twice monthly, he offers three local retirement communities his “greatest hits” in biology, chemistry, physics, engineering, marine ecology and anatomy/physiology. 

 

But regardless of his students’ age, he seeks to impart one lesson above all: “Understanding what science is and isn’t. Science doesn’t really have the ‘right answer’,” he said. “We use the best answer we have given the data available. There’s stuff I taught in 1980 that was wrong, and I’m fine with that, because what I was teaching then was the best science class I could teach, with the best available information. 

“At the same time, I developed a course called ‘Current Topics in Biology’ in 2010, and one of my units was on pandemics,” he continued. “I was about 11 years ahead of the curve, so that’s pretty good!”

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What does September bring to mind? 

"Going 90 miles an hour."