Amongst several new Robinson teachers, Gerard Batista joins this year’s faculty. Batista teaches senior IB history and AP European History to IB sophomores. Although this is his first year at Robinson, he is not new to teaching.

Batista has been teaching for 18 years and loves it. Before coming to Robinson, he taught history at Riverview High School. Coming from such a large school, Batista looks forward to becoming a part of the close-knit Robinson community. He is excited to experience Robinson’s “small-town feel, close bond and great culture, despite being in a city environment.”

Batista’s passion for teaching has existed throughout most of his life. “It’s something I have wanted to do since I was in high school,” he said. “I always wanted to teach.”

Although Batista was aware of his desire to teach, he wasn’t always clear on exactly what he wanted to teach. “My strengths had always been math and social studies, but somehow [his 12th grade English teacher] just made me flip completely,” he said. “She just made me enjoy something that I had never enjoyed before.” This teacher was so influential, that after taking her class, Batista was inspired to become a teacher. Though Batista pursued history rather than English, he is still inspired by her and hopes to make his students feel about history the way she made him feel about English.

Teaching isn’t the only thing that Batista is passionate about. He also loves coaching basketball. Back at Riverview, Batista coached girls basketball for eight years and enjoyed every minute of it.

Students appreciate how much effort Batista puts into his lessons. “Mr. Batista is a very nice teacher who makes his class interesting by finding fun ways of teaching us the information,” Deborah Vazquez (’24) said. “[Batista makes] it nice and at the same time educational.”

It is clear that Batista is very passionate about what he does. As a result, he strives to make his class fun and interesting in order to keep his students excited about learning.