Who is Daniel Bussinger? Daniel Bussinger teaches multiple Spanish classes at Nevada Union and describes himself as “pretty friendly and empathetic.”
Bussinger strives to create a welcoming environment for his classes, “I really like the students, even the ‘bad students’, they turn out to usually need more attention, and I think even the students that are failing don’t dislike me at all,” Bussinger admitted. “My favorite thing about my job is the people, the students and staff are incredible!”
His life has not always been great.
“I camped in the redwoods on campus during college because I did not have enough money for the dorms, which would have been okay but on the news there was this trailside killer, and he was randomly killing hiker on these trails right beside campus, and I got really nervous,” Bussinger explained, “so I moved up into a tree fort, 70 feet up in a redwood tree where I stayed for the rest of the semester.”
Apparently, Bussinger hadn’t always wanted to be a teacher.
“I wanted to be a carpenter because my high school girlfriend’s brother was a carpenter and I noticed he got to be really creative and he also got to choose his time off,” said Bussinger, “I fell into teaching because I was a career carpenter for about 20 years, then I crashed my mountain bike and got a back injury. The doctor said ‘You cannot be a carpenter anymore’ and so I was thinking ‘Wow, if I cannot sit in a chair or carry lumber around then I need to walk’ and the only jobs I could think of were being a teacher or a mailman, but the post office weren’t hiring.”
Bussinger is also a man of culinary arts. He enjoys many different dishes and types of food, “I mostly eat organic food,” Bussinger said, “and I like a lot of different kinds of Ethnic food, Indian food, Japanese food, Mexican food, Italian food, and probably French food but I can’t afford it.”
Bussinger is no longer camping in the woods and has become a prominent member of the NU community.
“I already have a superpower, Empathy!… and the ability to speak Spanish.” said Mr. Bussinger.
