Teacher Who ‘Never Got a Real Job’ Feted

Tustin High School teacher James Eyre is one of many veteran instructors who is calling it quits this summer--he’s ready to enjoy retirement, but sad to leave the classroom after 40 years of teaching.

“I believe that teaching keeps a person young,” said the 62-year-old Placentia resident. “You have to keep up with them. To me it’s like a fountain of youth.”

Known for his “door is always open” policy and his distinct teaching style, Eyre was popular with his students and colleagues, said John Briquelet, an American literature teacher.

“I have tremendous respect for him,” Briquelet said. “He took his job very seriously and he felt tremendous responsibility as a teacher as well as a role model. I always felt Jim Eyre was the biggest kid advocate around.”

Recent Tustin High graduate Tram Hoang, 18, took Eyre’s U.S. history class as a junior and said she was sad she wouldn’t be able to visit his classroom anymore.

“His class was one of the best classes I had at Tustin High,” she said. “He is different than other teachers because he is actively involved with students. He gets to know us as individuals.”

Samantha McKee, who had Eyre for sociology, said she was also disappointed to see one of her favorite teachers leave.

“That means that Tustin is losing a great person, not only a good teacher,” said the 18-year-old recent graduate.

Although Eyre earned a bachelor’s degree in education, he had no intention of entering a classroom when graduating from Northern Illinois University in 1959.

About a year after he graduated, Eyre was working in a physics lab in Illinois researching automobile catalytic converters when he heard about three teacher job openings, two in California and one in Michigan. He applied and all three jobs were offered to him.

Eyre was attracted to Southern California’s comfortable weather and decided to teach seventh-graders in Norwalk.

“I thought, ‘I’ll do this for a awhile and then I’ll go home and get a real job,’ ” Eyre recalled. “You just never can tell.”

Forty years later, two of Eyre’s most recent students, Jorge Lopez and Elizabeth Smith, presented him with a plaque at the end of the year.

“Through his unique teaching style of becoming friends with his students and reaching them on a more personal level, he has changed the way in which we look at teachers,” wrote Lopez and Smith. “He has gotten us to really appreciate and be grateful to those whose lives are dedicated to educating us. . . . Your dedication and commitment to teaching has impacted many lives.”

As a teacher, role model and sometimes as a counselor, Eyre said he hopes his students remember him as someone who was interested in what they had to say as a human being, not just a student.

“The idea is you hope you made a positive impact in their lives,” said Eyre, who plans to travel, read, garden and maybe take a cooking class during his retirement. “[The positive feedback from students] makes me feel I have done what I am supposed to do.”

Marissa Espino can be reached at (714) 966-5879.