By Brian McSwiggen ’14, The Lens Co-Section Editor
At the end of this school year, Dr. Gregory Martin will be leaving Cincinnati Country Day School after having worked here for six years. Next year, he will be moving to La Jolla (pronounced Hoya) Country Day in San Diego, where he will be filling the position of the Head of the Upper School.
I first met Dr. Martin when he came to Mrs. Mentor’s fifth-grade classroom to teach us how to use our new Toshiba tablets. A jovial, boisterous man, Dr. Martin led the class through the steps of using Microsoft Office and DyKnow. From then on, I knew Dr. Martin as a librarian and a techie. It was in ninth grade, however, that I began to know him as an English teacher and a friend.
Nicknamed “dMart” and “Papa bear” by our freshman humanities class, Dr. Martin, it turned out, was not only smart, but also kind and compassionate. That year, he and Dr. Jeremiah McCall (dMac) graciously (and, perhaps, rather foolishly) welcomed students into their shared office across from room 202. It, and the alcove next to it, quickly became a favored hangout place for my friends and me, allowing us to get to know these two teachers even better.
Throughout his time at Country Day, Dr. Martin has taken on many diverse roles. I have been lucky enough to see him in many of them, but for others, such as the construction of the pizza oven last year, I was not able to be there, but heard about them nonetheless. Dr. Martin, however, has done even more work behind the scenes for this schools that, perhaps, is not recognized as much as it should. He runs the curriculum committee and is in charge of “pedagogical growth and development.” He has been in charge of much of the academic auditing – involving the ISACS group this year – that the school does yearly. Though less visible to the student body, this work is no less important.
Dr. Martin will be missed next year. Those who will take up his many responsibilities, including ninth grade English and World History, will have big shoes to fill (literally and figuratively). However, I know he will do outstandingly out in San Diego. To be sure, he is not giving up his commitment to quality education. When I asked him about La Jolla, he said it was very similar to Country Day in its philosophy of “educating scholars, artists, and athletes of character.” Indeed, it can’t be too different – it was founded in the same year!
As his colleague Dr. McCall said, “Dr. Martin is a phenomenal teacher and human being. His commitment to meaningful progressive education is amazing, and we’ll miss him a lot.” Dr. Martin, we’ll all miss you a lot. Good luck at La Jolla!
