“I can say with confidence that Loomis teachers are experimenting and doing fun things all across the campus.”

In sports, a utility player is someone who can play multiple positions well. Someone who is versatile, adaptable, and willing to do what is best for the team.

David Edgar has taught across multiple disciplines at Loomis each year, and in the 2024–25 school year this “utility player” is teaching an English class as well as a religious studies class and an Arabic course.

“As a thinking person, it allows me to keep my mind fresh ... and it keeps teaching super, super fresh,” David said.

Not that his mind would have any time to grow stale. He also leads the Model United Nations team and is the director of the fall Black Box Theater plays.

David was named Teacher of the Year for the 2023–24 school year. The honored teacher is chosen by the Student Council based on student nomination essays. David was appreciative of the recognition but wanted to make it clear that there are many others who could have been so honored.

“I can say with confidence that Loomis teachers are experimenting and doing fun things all across the campus,” David said. “One of the reasons I am excited to come back each year is I can just walk into a classroom during my free period and learn about being a better educator.”

A tradition at Loomis is Open Classroom Week, when teachers are encouraged to spend time in other classrooms. For many teachers, David says, the energy of learning from each other extends well beyond Open Classroom Week, whether it is sitting in another class or simply talking about the profession.

“I have a list of probably 12 teachers I go to regularly to talk about lesson plans, something I want to try out or to hear their cool new projects,” David said. “Teachers here light up when they talk about what they’re teaching.” 

David said a guiding principle — one that has stayed with him since first hearing it in his orientation as a new faculty member — is that Loomis gives a teacher “permission to experiment.”

“I have gotten into overhauling major assessments, changing how I did homework for a semester, rethinking my grading practice for an entire term for a class,” David said. “Students feel the freshness of that. And when that comes from principles that I am doing it because I believe it leads to good educational outcomes, they buy into that as well. There is a positive, experimental energy there.”

David exudes this energy as he talks about the profession. In the classroom he seeks to take his students to a higher level.

“A good teacher has high expectations for students,” David said. “That is the most important thing. Students will rise, in my experience, to the bar you set for them, and if you set the bar too low, that's how far they rise.”

David said he also is aware of his presence in the process and that there needs to be a “willingness to pause and let your own thoughts die down and see the student in front of you in the room, what is going on in that moment.”

Although David has taught in multiple schools and different environments, he said he has never come across a student anywhere who could not learn a lot.

“Students are brilliant if you inspire them and create a cool classroom environment that is hard but caring,” he said.

He also said that the Loomis culture and administration allow for students to do great things. “When that support is there, you can take kids to such wildly far places,” David said. “There is an authentic curiosity across the elective courses I’ve taught here and the core courses that is so fun to work with, and it is there because there is a space for it that Loomis creates.”