Mr. Joe Lim (he/him)

Q: What school did you come from and why did you pick Head-Royce?

A: “This might sound a little cheesy, but I feel like Head-Royce chose me. I left the interview process feeling truly valued by the Head Royce professional community—and that was just the first day!”

Q: What do you plan to add to the curriculum/community? 

A: “My hope, perhaps my dream, is that I will be able to build an outstanding and well-respected choral program here at Head-Royce. I would like to bring both our choirs to as many competitions and as festivals and non-competitive music festivals as possible. I think touring, as in performing in the local and broader community (the Bay Area and outside of California) is going to be an important part of the growth of our program … I am also hoping to start and build a Jazz Choir.”

Q: What do you wish your students knew about you? 

A: “I’m a pretty open book; I am that kind of person who wears his heart on his sleeve. And I would say, now in my 20th year of teaching, I lean towards being a little bit more serious about the way that I teach. But I think I can be a big goofball, and it will take time.

Mr. Ben Norton (he/him)

Q: What’s the craziest thing that’s happened to you?

A:“I think being born is pretty wild, honestly. Life continues to amaze me; waking up after I go to sleep is so cool, and it’s a blessing every day to just be alive in such a beautiful place around such wonderful people. I think there’s something in the human spirit that keeps us thinking about things with ourselves at the center of everything. I think one of the great disciplines is to find how to rein it in or channel it into being other-centered, whether that’s other people, or other things, or just a broader connection to the world.”

Q: What do you wish your students knew about you? 

 A: “I want to show up in how I act in the classroom. I’m here because I had a few people point me in the right direction, and if you took those people away from me, I don’t know what way I’d be pointed. I had a professor in college who helped me realize that there is something really anchored in truth and connection about just being literally and metaphorically on the same page, as other people. It felt like it really mattered to them, and we weren’t just ‘doing class’. We were engaged in something higher, something about being alive.”