One of Blackfoot’s most juvenile, youthful teachers is Mori Dunlap, a video gamer who graduated high school at 16 and now teaches his passion, math, to high school students. He has no kids, but he gets a daily dose of parenting every day he comes to school to teach. Creating friendships and hanging out with his students are a couple of his favorite things about teaching, and he’s an open book to all his students. A few things that students might find surprising about him are that he’s really not that different from his students. He’s still developing his mindset and he’s on the same journey that the rest of us are on. 

  Like a true video game fanatic, he gets tired of games easily, so he is always looking for which game to play next. His recently played games are League of Legends and Final Fantasy 14. He plays games during his summer break but has to establish an equilibrium between his video-game time and his other summer activities. 

This last summer, he moved to Seattle but moved back to Idaho after a month. A nomad indeed, he’s traveled to lots of different places. He’s lived in Texas and even in England. Great Britain happens to be his favorite vacation place. His roots reside in Idaho however, in the city of Idaho Falls. He commutes every day to teach at Blackfoot High School, and he dreams to live in a place where he can bike or take a public transportation system to work instead of his current car commutes. 

Although he’s usually up-to-date with the teenage trends, one trend that absolutely baffles him is the VSCO girl. He does not have VSCO, but he does have Reddit: a must-have app for his smartphone. Reddit is his main source of the trends that come and go so quickly. Spotify is another must-have app, but because he is an adult and has grown-up responsibilities, he is always sure to keep a banking and budgeting app on his phone. 

Even though he likes to stay trendy, he has his own unique interests. His favorite color is gray, unlike the combed hairs of John H. Watson’s brilliantly brown hair, who happens to be his favorite fictional character. His favorite video game character is Urgot off of League of Legends. His favorite TV-show is Bob’s Burgers, and in the spirit of Louise’s fabulous animal bunny ears, the Fantastic Mr. Fox takes the lead as Mr. Dunlap’s favorite movie with Mr. Fox’s equally as fabulous pointed ears. His favorite food is alfredo pasta, and his favorite sweet is not a typical one: circus peanuts. 

Mr. Dunlap says he would survive this long in the event of a zombie apocalypse: “About 1 day since sitting in the fetal position in the corner crying my eyes out is a terrible survival plan, but that’s all I would manage to do.” Perhaps if music was still available at a time like that, he could ease his nerves by singing along to Rocketer by Far East Movement or American Boy by Estelle. 

In order to keep some order into his life, he has some guidelines that he lives by. One is for the life of a teacher: if you jam the copier, fix it! A general bathroom rule he applies to his life is that the toilet paper goes over. As Mr. Dunlap puts it, “This is not a question, there is no alternative to having it go over.” Jokes and toilet paper aside, he wants his students to know that it’s okay to only be able to give 50%. He gets it; sometimes you feel so sad or exhausted that you really cannot give 100%. He says that it’s okay to be vulnerable, and it’s okay to open yourself up to whoever is in your life right now. He wants his students to know that we’re not in this world to be alone.