I was fortunate to sit down with the honorable Mr. Mayne Friday morning to try and further my knowledge on who he really is. Mr. Mayne is an English teacher at our high school and teaches Public Speaking as well. 

I generated a list of questions for him to answer and if you know Mr. Mayne you already know he loves to talk and tell stories so I didn’t have to come up with a million questions to ask him.

I asked him a variety of questions including ones about school, his student teacher and his life outside of school. 

Off the bat, I asked him roughly what inspired him to be an English teacher at VHS. Like many teachers would say just like Mr. Mayne: “I’ve wanted to be a teacher since I was a kid.” 

Mr. Mayne is someone who is heavy into the Arts and exclaimed that “I chose English because we can incorporate arts, theater and literature into our curriculum.”

He went on to say that “Victor is a great school district.” Which is why he landed on his feet here compared to the other districts he used to work for.

As some students may not know, Mr. Mayne also teaches the elective in Public Speaking. I asked him which class he prefers teaching more. He said how “It (public speaking) is a very different course”… “I can’t choose between the two.”

It is clear to me that he enjoys teaching English and Public speaking as I have had him for both courses. He explained that “Public speaking is a good mental break”, away from teaching English. 

Public speaking is an elective everyone should take, not just because Mayne teaches it but it is a good class for future use. As he said “Public speaking is a really fun class”, and I can fully agree with him on that.

The start of this school year has been different for Mr. Mayne as he has a student teacher, Mr. Benson.

He also told me it is really fun and interesting to have a student teacher, especially since he already knew Mr. Benson prior to him being in the classroom with him.

He went on to say that “It’s really neat to be able to see someone in a professional light when you don’t normally get to see someone in that way, especially when they’re your friend.” 

Mr. Mayne has had student teachers in the past and he exclaimed that “It makes you feel like you’re helping someone for the future.” In this case he says how “One of my friends gets to see me teach, which doesn’t occur often.”

If you didn’t know, Mr. Mayne has taught in 4 different school districts: Orchard Park, Brockport, Batavia and now here in Victor. 

I asked Mr. Mayne how Victor has changed since he first started and he said how, not necessarily the school itself has changed but “courses have changed immensely.” 

He also went into depth saying that “As I’ve grown as a teacher I felt more at home at Victor, Victor is always a place of positive interaction with students.”

For fun, I asked Mr. Mayne if he were to take a class from one of the other English teachers, who would it be? Of course, he said Mr. Caughlin.

In one way or another we’ve always heard Mr. Caughlin from down the hall and Mr. Mayne explained it best saying “I often hear Mr. Caughlin very loudly proclaiming whatever he is talking about… It would be very entertaining to see the performance of him.” 

Not many teachers have the chance to see other teachers performing their craft and Mr. Mayne would love to see a lecture from Mr. Caughlin for the whole 80 minutes. 

Lastly, as many Victor students do not know, our own Mr. Mayne is a big fan of the TV shows Big Brother and survivor. He also enjoys the Hunger Games and the popular game Among Us. 

He enjoys getting his friends together to create their own version of these games and compete against each other. “I’ve been hosting reality games for 20 years.”

When all of his competitors are together they play for money and the thrill and excitement of competition. He described it as “I do the same as TV… people walk away with money.”

Many former Victor students reached out to Mr. Mayne over the years asked him to participate in his activities. He told me “several students after graduating are like “I wanna play your game.”

His dream is to “make a party planning business for people who hire me.” But fortunately for us he is staying at Victor for now teaching his ways.

Mr. Mayne is a teacher everyone should get to know at some point in their high school years as he isn’t most like teachers. He is always positive and outgoing for the people around him.