Many people have been lucky enough to know who Mr. Buttram is, or just Buttram, from taking French, traveling with the school to Québec or France, being involved with the many clubs he runs, or even through a family member or friend. Still we may not have gotten the luck we need to know who he is.
Early Life
Mr. Buttram was born in Caribou, Maine. He didn’t live there for a long time and has few memories of his hometown. He moved to upstate New York and finished his early years at Rush Henrietta High School.
He chose to take French because his Mom recommended that he do so so that she could help him if he had any trouble in his studies. He also felt a connection to his hometown, Caribou, a French-speaking area of Maine. Lastly, his older brother was taking Spanish, and he recommended that Buttram take French instead.
College Life and Teaching
Buttram started his college experience at Suny Geneseo. Being a teacher wasn’t his original plan but after deciding that being a doctor wasn’t the greatest choice. He decided to transfer his undergrad to teaching. He would finish his master’s in education at the University at Buffalo.
His classes were very specific to teaching French because it wasn’t his undergrad. He had to study a lot of history of languages, religions, and different languages.
Buttram was motivated to teach French specifically because he fell in love with France. After all, it was slightly different. “Captivating but unfamiliar,” he said. One of Buttram’s professors recommended a program called “TAPIF” (Teaching Assistant Program in France), where he would live in France to teach English in French schools. He fell in love with teaching during his time in France.
During college, Buttram worked many odd jobs. He worked a lot on the canal, working canal tourism jobs, being a first mate on a tour boat, and teaching people how to navigate on the water. Last but not least, he worked for Wegmans on their organic farm.
Transferring from college to teaching was kind of a whirlwind for Buttram. Finishing his master’s while teaching at West Seneca is easy to manage. But interviewing was interesting. He looked and applied to many districts but the first to hire him would be where he currently teaches, Victor Senior High School.
Before coming to Victor, he felt like he was taking on another teacher’s teaching style while student teaching and subbing. He taught for 3 other teachers before getting hired at Victor, and teaching as a sub was pretty relaxing but now doing planning and grading is a lot of work to do.
Being hired to teach in Victor felt very final to him. This would be where he would teach and live for years to come. Shortly after being hired at Victor, he moved back to Rochester, which felt nice. It was a huge transition from subbing at West Seneca and Fairport to the city he had just spent two years in.
Travel With Victor
From his first few years, Buttram would chaperone the 8th-grade trip to Québec in the Spring with Ms. Ross, a 7th-grade French and French 1 teacher at Victor Junior High School.
In High School he is involved with the trip to Québec in the winter, the trip to France, and the Rennes exchange. He helps plan the exchange completely with Mrs. Stekl. With the other trips, a travel agent is used.
His favorite parts about going on these trips are seeing the students’ facial expressions when they notice something that intrigues them and hearing about the culture shocks the students’ experience.
The hardest parts of the exchange for Buttram are the logistics. How to get to a location and how are you going to use that form of transportation? Once you reach the destination, everything is ok, but it’s just the way of getting there is the hard part for Buttram.
Travel On his Own
Buttram had never had the opportunity to travel outside of the country before he taught in France. He would go on road trips with his family around the country but other than that, he didn’t travel.
His favorite areas in America that he’s been to are Havasu Canyon, Boston, Chattanooga Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Florida, San Francisco, and Louisiana.
Some countries that he has traveled to are France, Morocco, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Austria. France feels like a second home to Buttram. He feels the same in France as he does in the US. Some countries that he wants to spend more time in are Spain and Morocco.
