Former Humberview teacher recognized for impact on students through robotics team

May 27, 2021 · 0 Comments

By Rob Paul

When a teacher has a positive effect on a student’s life and nurtures their strengths, it can set the stage for their future and provides a lasting impact that they will remember for the rest of their lives.

Former Humberview Secondary School teacher Tibor Torontali didn’t look for recognition when he spent his days molding the minds of Bolton’s youth, but sometimes that impact can show up years down the road.

That’s what happened when former Humberview student Matthew Reynolds nominated Torontali for the Loran Scholars Foundation’s Teachers Building Leaders Award.

The award recognizes primary and secondary school teachers who provide early inspiration, guidance, and growth opportunities for students.

In partnership with universities, donors, and volunteers across Canada, the Loran Scholars Foundation offers the country’s largest four-year undergraduate award to young Canadians on the basis of character, service, and the promise of leadership. Each year, graduating Loran Scholars are able to show their gratitude to the teachers who impacted them by nominating them for the Teachers Building Leaders Award.

Reynolds, a 2017 Loran Scholar and one of the leaders of Humberview’s robotics team when he was a student, nominated Torontali who was instrumental in the robotics team’s success. Torontali was selected as one of the 26 teachers across the country to receive the award in 2021.

“I was totally surprised,” he said. “I was elated to hear about it, and it makes you feel good to get recognition. As a teacher you don’t go into it for the accolades. My joy and delight are when I see others succeed. It’s in my nature to get joy out of others succeeding, it’s like when you’re watching sports and you see someone greater than you do something you can’t do, to me that’s exciting.

“Human nature is very easily understandable, everybody loves recognition. I was very grateful for this and very happy. You work hard as a teacher and an example is the (Loran Scholar) application process and giving a clear descriptor of who Matthew is and why he’s so unique. It was a lot of work, and it was a constant month of writing, re-writing, re-editing, and having others read it until you get to the point where you feel the words explain exactly who this guy is. I was just surprised that they commemorate teachers with an award for supporting the student, so it was very surprising.”

Although Torontali left Humberview in 2019 after nearly a decade for Crescent School in Toronto, being recognized with the Teachers Building Leaders Award reminds him of the impact and change the robotics team he helped shape had on the students in Bolton.

“It feels great, and it really encapsulates my time at Humberview. It’s a great school,” he said. “It has an amazing robotics and tech program that myself and others helped develop. This is an example of what came out of that and having the Loran Foundation acknowledge teachers who do this sort of things is great. We had a first robotics team that competed at tournaments, that was team 4946, the legendary Alpha Dogs that are the team for Caledon.”

The Alpha Dogs were started at Humberview in 2013 thanks to Torontali, fellow teachers Chris Ziskos and David Hilgendorff, and a handful of senior students. They began competing in 2014 in robotics competitions and Torontali credits Reynolds and the support at Humberview for the program’s major success.

“We were pretty successful, and Matthew was involved in so much there and a main driver of the program. He secured a lot of support from Husky Injection Molding Systems in Bolton who gave us amazing support to keep the robotics program going at the school. I also have to thank Sue Fried, the former principal at Humberview. She was extremely supportive of the program and my endeavours; she never said no to anything we tried to do.”

Normally the impact that teachers have on students is at the forefront when looking at what a leader can do in the classroom, but Torontali says that was a two-way street with Matthew.

“We still stay in touch and he’s even doing some stuff globally now,” he said. “It’s really funny because a lot of his assignments and work he did for me as a student I have kept, and I use as an exemplar—even at the school I teach at now—it was just the quality that it was. It was pretty extensive what I asked of the students in the robotics course I taught at Humberview but it went a long way when they bought into it and they created a really strong product.

“Matthew was exceptional, there was not one assignment where he didn’t give more than what was expected. He left an impact on everyone, it’s the kind of person he is. He aligned exactly with my personality and what I tried to get out of the students. I tried to get them to understand that what you do in life should make you happy, even with the problems and failures you may face. It’s always important to keep pushing forward and create solutions for those mistakes.”