The Life of Robert Canter: English Teaching Super Hero

Robert Canter stood at his front door sipping a cup of coffee one early morning and watched a figure slash his car tires in his own driveway. It was a student of his. The year was 1994 and Robert Canter was in his second year teaching at Virginia Tech. The motive for the crime? Canter had given this student a “B.”

Twelve years later, it is 9:30 p.m. on a Tuesday, but Robert Canter is still in his office in Shanks, visiting with a transfer student and talking about nothing in particular. The atmosphere is welcoming and friendly. Canter wears light blue jeans, a gray long sleeve casual shirt and dirty construction boots. His hair is curly and disheveled, complementing his full beard and glasses. When he speaks, his voice is low and calm.

His office is messy, to say the least. There are piles of paper and books everywhere, and his desktop screen saver is on. He even has a small alarm clock he keeps on his desk, which he uses in case he needs to sleep in the office.

“I set the alarm for 8 a.m., fall asleep, wake up and splash cold water on my face and go teach class,” he said. This is the kind of professor Canter prefers to be; dedicated, hard-working and down to earth.

“His sense of humor is what I remember most,” said Sarah Matthews, junior English major, who was a student of Canter’s in the 2007 spring semester in his Survey of American Literature class. “He really listened to his students, which made me feel less like a number and more like a human being.” She also recalled his intense passion for teaching.

He has a lot on his plate this semester. He is teaching four English classes, two of which are writing-intensive. He has two young children and his father is dying of emphysema.

“In English, instructors teach a four-course schedule of mainly writing-intensive courses – a daunting workload given the amount of conferencing and paper reading involved.  Yet they sustain a quality of dedication and professionalism that is absolutely remarkable,” said Nancy Metz, associate professor and chair of the undergraduate committee for the English department.

Canter has plenty of experience. He has been teaching English at Tech for the last 14 years.

“Since coming to Virginia Tech from the University of Virginia in 1994, Bob has worked closely with his students to help them develop their fullest potential,” said Metz. “Students admire the variety of methods by which he presents course content and the genuinely helpful feedback on their written work.”

Canter attended the State University of New York for his undergraduate degree, and attended the University of Virginia for graduate school. He began teaching at Virginia Tech right after his graduation.

In his time here, Canter has had the time to learn some lessons about teaching. “The same qualities that make you a good teacher – compassion, caring and commitment – can also make you a bad teacher if you care too much, or are too personal,” he said.

Canter says he feels his best moments are when he is able to take something that’s intimidating and impressing to a student and brings light to that darkness and is able to relieve frustration the student feels. “It’s when I orchestrate, or do the right thing to give them the confidence they deserve.”

Canter says his best moments are when he can help his students feel good about themselves for the right reasons. “It’s when the country boy realizes he can keep up with the northern Virginian and the northern Virginian is humbled and realizes that the country boy has something good to say,” he says.

According to Metz, one of Canter’s Technical Writing students wrote on last year's course evaluation: "I wish more professors could find his balance of precise yet down-to-earth instruction and controlled delivery of knowledge."

Canter has four children, two from a previous marriage and two from his current marriage. His previous marriage yielded two daughters, the eldest of which is studying psychology and film at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. He also has two young sons, Noah and Sam. He considers his children to be “the greatest joy in life.”

Noah and Sam take up most of Canter’s life when he’s not at work. They are in day care on Tuesdays and Thursdays (his teaching days) but on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, the boys are home with daddy. Canter’s wife teaches English at Christiansburg High School.

“I’m really lucky to have a Tuesday/Thursday teaching schedule because for one thing, day care is expensive as hell,” Canter said.

Canter lives on Giles Road in Blacksburg. He loves Blacksburg except for on “Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights and game weekends, when there’s a whole bunch of drunk college students running around town,” he said.

“Teaching is tiring but it’s the volume of grading that’s truly exhausting,” he said. Recently he’s been pulling 12 hour work days, and is looking forward to the break coming up.

These long days mean a lot to his students. Metz said one student wrote on last year’s course evaluation: "I've honestly never had a teacher more willing to help me improve on my writing or take the time to thoroughly analyze and constructively criticize it. It was obvious he really cared and genuinely wanted us to become better writers."

Canter knew he wanted to be an English teacher for a long time. “I remember one summer morning when my dad was going off to work and I was playing in the driveway and he was there in a suit and tie, had to get in a car and drive into a city, and go to work in a windowless office,” he recalled. “The thought of that horrified me and I thought to myself that’s not how I want to live. I’m not going to be in an office and I’m not going to be inside in the summertime.”

He always liked his English teachers and reading as he grew up. “Teaching looked like the easiest way to survive and be outside in the summer,” he said.
           
Canter likes Blacksburg. He is the coach of his softball team, and his closest friends play on the team. After their games they like to head to the pub, which he describes as a “bunch of greasy locals like me, and they know my favorite drink.” His favorite is bourbon and water.

Canter is teaching four classes this semester, which has proven to be a damper on his weekends. “Usually my wife takes our kids to the library or to Barnes and Noble which is a substitute library with bagels,” he says. He spends a lot of his time grading papers.

“A lot of it (the weekend), we lie around the house and let the kids determine what games they want to play,” he says. “These include monster games, forts with the couch cushions and blankets, a lot of wrestling and chasing, and playing pirates.”

Noah, the older of his two sons, is big on playing hero lately. He insists that Canter play a victim and that he must come save him. However, recently when Canter was “on fire” and Noah was the valiant firefighter, the two of them came to the realization that Noah couldn’t rescue daddy and carry him down the stairs. So instead, Canter carried his son, but promised Noah that they would pretend the opposite was occurring. Noah even put his sock on his hands and pulled them up to his elbows, so as to be in full firefighter uniform with long gloves to combat the flames.

“Remember-I’m saving you, right Daddy?” Noah asked. The smile that spreads across Canter’s face as he recounts this small event shows he finds great joy in being a father.

The events of last spring were hard for him. He felt the effects emotionally, and began his grief instantaneously. “I reacted right away,” he said.

“I’ve gone to the two extremes. On one hand I feel myself being more reserved with students. It’s like the old army phenomenon where you don’t want to get too close because your friend might be going away. On the other hand, you can’t help but care even more. We lean on each other a little more….there are times when it’s so emotionally exhausting, I can feel the waves of emotion coming on. It drives me to make an extra effort for them,” he said.

Canter’s favorite novel is William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. His favorite novel to teach, however, is James Leo Herlihy’s Midnight Cowboy because he says he feels like it resonates with his students.

“This is a novel about a character without parents and a culture that is parenting him poorly,” he says. “I want people to be better parents when they come into my class. They’re going to be parents one day and if literature doesn’t help them become better at being themselves and better eventually at being parents, then it fails.”

Canter’s approach to teaching has touched many students’ lives. His willingness to be open, honest and listen to what they have to say has a strong impact on them, one that many never forget.