Loring Greene
Loring Greene grew up in California and graduated from Medford High School. He started his new job with the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO) just 10 days before schools closed down in March. Outside of school, Greene loves running and martial arts.
Why did you decide to start working at the Brookline Public Schools?
I originally got recruited to work as a paraprofessional at the Driscoll school about four years ago. I was finishing up my degree, and the position for the METCO advisor came up. METCO is such an amazing, robust program that I’ve known about my whole life. This position opened up, so I applied for the position, went through the interview process and was lucky enough to land it. It’s been great.
How has working at BHS been different than working at Driscoll?
Funny story––my first day working last year was 10 days before we went into the shelter-in-place. So before school got canceled, I got about 10 days to work at the school and meet as many people as I could. I was trying to learn how the schedule worked. There are some really amazing teachers, administrators and staff at BHS. It really just seems like the cream of the crop when it comes to public schools. It’s the same thing for Driscoll but BHS is on a greater scale. It almost reminds me of a college campus at times.
What was your favorite subject in school?
Probably world history or any type of government class. I took a comparative government class that was really cool.
Why was that your favorite class?
It was the first time that I really learned about the political spectrum. In the class, I learned that it goes from complete anarchy all the way to a completely totalitarian government. I learned everything in between and it was just an eye-opener. I ended up going to school for political science after that. We also would compare two governments that were really different. For example, I remember one time we were comparing the Nigerian government with the Chinese government model. It was crazy to look at it through that lens because a lot of times we just compared things to the Western model.
What do you like to do in your free time?
Recently I’ve been really getting into running. I was planning on running the Boston Marathon, and I was training for that. I also love martial arts. I’ve been training in martial arts since I was seven years old. I’ve been doing Zoom classes now. I’ve competed all over America, and I used to be ranked when I was in high school.
What types of martial arts do you practice?
I did Taekwondo for a couple of years. I also did another called Tang Soo Do which is basically a Korean Taekwondo version of karate. I can still count to ten in Korean.
Why do you practice martial arts?
I’ve learned meditation skills through it. I’ve met plenty of people as well. Also the competition aspect because I love competing. I love getting out there, doing kicks, and doing all that fun stuff.