There’s a New Barbour in Town

“I think that this is my ideal teaching situation,” says Seabury’s newest faculty member Neal Barbour. “I have small classes; I have autonomy to craft my own lesson plans and I have the time to really put into grading and giving feedback and understanding each student.” Only a handful of weeks into the second semester, Barbour has dived head first into his new place in the Seahawk community.

Barbour took over for former faculty member Cris Bryan, who moved away after last semester, and is now teaching seventh grade English and English as a Second Language (ESL). However, this is far from his first teaching experience. “I’ve taught at many different levels all the way from preschool to adult learners,” says Barbour. “I started by working in a Montessori-based preschool and kindergarten, and I taught middle school and high school at some highly impoverished inner-city schools in Portland. I moved to Kansas and taught high school art in Topeka and then became Director of Education at the Lawrence Arts Center.” 

While many Seahawks initially knew Barbour as the husband of faculty member Krista Barbour, his work at the Lawrence Arts Center is well known throughout the greater Lawrence community. “My primary focus was visual arts education and community engagement,” says Mr. Barbour, “so I was working with different organizations within the community like Boys & Girls Club, CASA or Social Service agencies and members of the public as well,” Barbour says. Making a variety of high-quality classes taught by local artists available to the community was his highest priority: “For elementary-aged students, that looked like offering some fun big exciting classes in the arts, and for middle school and high school classes it was more about achieving technical skills.” 

While Barbour certainly has had a plethora of teaching opportunities in a variety of settings, he says that being a teacher is something he has long been passionate about: “I think it’s been a part of my family. Growing up, my mom was a reading specialist and my dad was a social worker, so I’ve always thought of teaching as a service and a lifestyle.” 

That learning lifestyle is crucial, says Barbour: “We’re always learning and always engaging with information, so, for me, it’s really important that that never disappears. You’re always a lifelong learner and you’re always seeking out information and knowledge and doing so through practice. For me, it was a very clear choice that I wanted to help other people find a way to be lifelong learners.” 

Barbour’s artistic interest and background has also made it into the classroom this semester. “We started off with a music writing unit to look at different aspects of culture, and [to] look at it through an English perspective,” Barbour says, “Looking at the language and really exploring the meaning of language through songs has been really exciting.” Barbour says that mixing his love for the arts, music and teaching has been an exciting experience and is a great introduction to his new students: “I’ve had a lot of fun planning that first unit and watching it unfold, so I’m really looking forward to my other units, planning and then watching it unfold in the classroom.”

When he is out of the classroom, Barbour has a variety of hobbies and interests: “Lately my main hobby has been working on cars. My friend and I started working on old Volkswagen buses and restoring them and then selling them. So that’s my side-hustle; being a mechanic.” As one might guess, he also enjoys many kinds of art. “I also really love making art, doing ceramics and of course I love reading books,” he says. “I’m an avid reader.” Watching movies and collecting records are also some of Barbour’s favorite pastimes. “Being a mechanic and consuming pop culture is what I’m most into,” he says.

“I’m really looking forward to watching my students grow over an entire year,” says Barbour. It is not often that new teachers are brought in between semesters, but Barbour is excited to engage and learn about his students: “I’m really looking forward to all the practice to get there, but really that moment where you can look back and say ‘Wow’ and see how far these students have come. They’re able to do something they never thought they’d be able to do at the beginning of the year, and now they do it without a struggle.” 

The Chronicle welcomes Mr. Barbour to the Seabury community!