Last year, Elder High School lost a beloved English teacher, Mr. David Reiring, causing a large search to find one of the newest teachers at Elder. No one knew who would be hired, but the result was still unexpected. The Elder administration decided on a former student from the Class of 2020: Nathan Bill.

Nathan is in a line of Bills who have had large associations with Elder. Sam Bill is a current senior who plays soccer and is largely involved with many of the faith activities at Elder such as the senior”Kairos” retreat.

There are also two Bill “fathers” with major associations to Elder: Mr. Brian Bill, the most widely known at this time, who is the head of Alumni Development at Elder and is the father of both Nathan and Sam. And Mr. Jeff Bill, the current president of the Elder’s Band Boosters and father of many prominent past and current students at Elder’s sister school, Seton High School.

Let’s look at Nathan Bill. How his upbringing could show how he became a teacher, and projects he has already started to make Elder an even better place than it already is.

Nathan’s Upbringing

One insight that sticks out after talking to Nathan’s father, Mr. Brian Bill, was that, while Nathan did surprise him with his choice to go into Education, it was not very surprising due to Nathan nature of always being concerned about others.

“You know, he’s always been concerned about other people,” he said, “He would want to check on them, see how their feelings are.” This meant that overall, Nathan’s major was “not very surprising.”

However, this was not Nathan’s first choice when going into college. In fact, he said that when he first started, he went in as a Business major at the University of Cincinnati. This was, to him, a sort of way to go in not fully undecided but still having many options.

After this, he said logically that “marketing is a good spot to go to. If you don’t know what you’re doing in Business, [Marketing] is where you go.” He did not feel the best about Business and Marketing, however, saying that he really had no interest in any of the co-ops or internships that UC offers in its Lindner College of Business.

This was an interesting time for Nathan where his Catholic faith would step in to help him see some particular signs.

“At a retreat, there was someone doing a talk, and they were in the exact same position: they had started in Business and then Marketing, but then they had gone to teaching.” This was a huge sign for him, pushing him to take the risk and switch to Secondary (High School) Education.

Even though Nathan was excited and committed to teaching, he was not committed to who he would be teaching, which became especially evident with his first foray into the Secondary Education major.

“In that major, you have to do one subject, so my one subject was English. My first class was British Literature from the 1500s, which made me realize that’s not the route I want to go either. I wanted to give myself a little leeway to do something else.”

This culminated in his switch to a UC Middle Education major, which gives qualifications for fourth to ninth grade. He said, however, that “my thought was ‘I’ll just do middle school.’ I’ll go to a local one like Our Lady of Victory or even a public school, and I’ll teach Math and English or something like that.” This thought was supported even more after his student teaching experience at Delhi Middle School.

Then, everything changed: “Out of nowhere, Mr. Reiring retires. That makes me think, ‘Maybe I should try to go for this.'” After this thought, his father made sure to mention that, rather than getting his materials together and sending in a more formal application, Brian pointed out how “‘You’ve known [the principal] your whole life, so at the very least, let him know that you have an interest.'”

Another aspect of his decision to come back to take Mr. Reiring’s position is due to the expertise that Elder provided in the subject.

After talking to Mr. Ruffing about his interest and submitting some formal applications, Nathan became a one of the newest teachers at Elder High School. He mentioned how it was “a bit of an issue” that he could only teach ninth grade, but that was maneuvered around, allowing Nathan to teach not only English but also Algebra 1 to Freshman students.

Nathan at Elder—Student Life

Before getting into Nathan’s current experiences at Elder, let’s look at a couple pictures from his past and present to show not only why he came back to Elder but also his current strengths in his teaching.

To the right is an image of Nathan from his senior soccer season at Elder, where he was largely successful along with the team. He did not lead in  goals or assists, but it can be seen from other images of the season that he was a leader of morale for the team, being the player to get everyone ready for the game rather than helping only himself.

With Nathan and others, the team was able to go into the postseason 9-5-2, riding the wave from the early season such as a monster 5-0 win against Lasalle High School, a GCL rival. They would have another five-goal win when starting sectionals, beating Middletown 6-1. The team would go far but ultimately fall to Lakota East in the Regional Semifinals.

To the left are the senior Hope Squad members, with Nathan being seated on the far left of the image. Elder High School’s Hope Squad is a student club designed to help with peers who may be struggling with anything related to mental health, helping them to feel recognized and seen just as the rest of their peers.

Nathan is not the only Bill that has had the selfless attitude needed for Hope Squad. In Nathan’s senior year, his brother Leo was also in the Hope Squad Sophomore group. A current senior at Elder, Sam also continued the tradition joining the club very quickly when coming to Elder.

Nathan at Elder—Teaching Life

While Nathan has been described by his father as a more independent person, he has still reached out to past teachers for assistance. Elder’s English 4 and AP Literature teacher Mr. Weinheimer analyzed Nathan’s situation as a whole.

He said, “I could always count on him in class discussions. Like, yeah, he was not the quiet kid in the corner. He definitely participated all the time, which I appreciated a lot… yeah, in the classroom, I could see him becoming a teacher.”

When talking about his experiences with Nathan coming in as a teacher, he talked about how Nathan is always able to ask him questions when needed, especially since he teaches his fourth period English 1 in Mr. Weinheimer’s classroom.

Overall, Nathan’s teaching style is based heavily in how many Elder English teachers taught him. He spoke on how his class is going to be a mixture of a good deal of writing as well as some focus on developing soft (social) skills with others.

His father also commented on something similar to this second point, saying “My grandpa taught me and I’m teaching my kids, ‘Hey, when you shake hands with someone, it’s a firm handshake and you look ’em in the eye. Put your phone away when you’re talking to people.’…He was raised that way, and it all culminates into who he is.”

The basis of Nathan’s teaching is that “You’re not teaching the subject; you’re teaching the student.” This developed into why he doesn’t just teach how to write a good essay but also how to write a good email and social skills in general.

He continues by telling how he may not end up teaching many books since the biggest focus for his class is understanding how to write. He does mention how he wants understanding overall, but the way to get to that is really hammering in on how to write the five-paragraph essay.

One unique aspect of how Nathan is ready to style his class is influenced largely by his knowledge of pop culture and the children of today.

“The biggest thing with any student is ‘How can you make it engaging?’ If you just throw them up a video of something completely unrelated, they’re not gonna pay attention.”

He continued by saying, “What if, instead, you give them a video, let’s say something overcoming a challenge, and show them a video of Mr. Beast overcoming a challenge? They know who Mr. Beast is, so you can make it fun and exciting but also informative at the same time.”

All of this reflects Nathan’s philosophy of student before subject, and it prepares the classroom for something much different than anything else at Elder.

New Ideas—The Panther Prep Program

One of the biggest new developments at Elder is about not only attracting new students from surrounding grade schools but also gaining the best of those students. While some approaches have focused on the first point, the Panther Prep Program is focused on this second option.

In short, the Panther Prep Program (PPP) is focused on pairing students at Elder with seventh or eighth grade students from nearby grade schools to create, as Nathan Bill, the creator of the program, puts it, a mentor-mentee relationship.

“We’re going to get a guy from Elder, probably a sophomore or junior, and connect them to a grade school kid at St. Lawrence [grade school],” he said. “The goal here is to kind of get them acclimated with high school life. We’ll go to St. Lawrence a couple of times, and they’ll come to Elder and check out what I think of as the four pillars of Elder, which are brotherhood, academics, community, and faith.”

This desire to help these young students aligns with exactly what was mentioned by his father earlier, and he’s very excited to get to show them “what Elder’s all about.”

Many at Elder are very excited about this new program. His father Brian has already made it known to his son that he is ready and willing to help with anything he needs; however, he also mentioned how his goal as a father was always to make sure his children can “make decisions on their own…unfortunately it causes a lot of anxious moments as a parent.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Weinheimer looked more at the whole situation, saying that the entirety of the PPP’s creation and Nathan’s leadership of it tell “a lot about who he is and what he’s capable of. So I am proud of him, and I think it’s really great that he’s doing that.”

Overall, Nathan Bill’s arrival at Elder did not cause any fanfare; rather, it simply created a new path for students in their first year here. They may already know of Mr. Bill through the Panther Prep Program or may learn of him and his unique teaching style when making it to Elder. But many may also be given the honor of being taught by him and learning what makes him and his family special.