By Charlyne Nguyen
Not everyone finds their calling early in life. Many people can go through multiple jobs at a time and still not find the job that really makes them tick.
That’s why when someone is able to say that they’ve happily been at the same job for 42 years, it is quite a feat.
Fountain Valley High School (FVHS) art teacher Michael Eich had his a-ha moment after his mentor and former FVHS aquatics coach Ray Bray encouraged Eich to start coaching the freshman and sophomore water polo players one summer during Eich’s junior year of high school at FVHS.
“As soon as I started coaching, I realized that I really enjoyed teaching and working with kids,” he said. “[I] turned it around right there and just headed for teaching. So soon as I entered college, the whole goal was for me to become a teacher.”
Eich has had his fair share of jobs, and it’s not to say that every one of them was exactly considered living the dream.
“They used to have answer agencies and I did that for a little bit of time,” Eich said. “[I] couldn’t stand that one where you answer phones, and I was doing the night shift. The phone was ringing all night long, and we never got any sleep.”
Getting a teaching position, let alone at FVHS, wasn’t easy despite his history and credentials at the school.
“[I] started working [at] [FVHS] with [Ray] coaching at the time–got on part-time,” Eich said. “Then I got pink-slipped because they were having to cut back here at this school. So I ended up looking around for a job locally, and I got a job at Santa Ana High School teaching math for five years and coached their water polo and swimming.
However, Eich wanted to look for a job closer to home.
“I made the decision to move away from Santa Ana back into this area closer to home,” he said. “I interviewed at Westminster, Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley for a science position, and ended up getting Fountain Valley.”
Eich’s position at FVHS wasn’t permanent because he ended up having to transfer to Ocean View High School for one year before he finally came back to FVHS full-time.
On top of that, in order to keep on teaching, Eich had to build quite the resume in order to keep up with the cutbacks made in the 70s and 80s.
“There was a lot of letting go of teachers. I ended up, over time, having to get different credentials so that I could still teach,” he said. “So I started out teaching physical education; then I taught math. Then I got my master’s degree and that helped me so that I could teach physical science and life science.”
Eventually, Eich was asked to teach an art class at FVHS since there was a job opening that needed to be filled.
Eich wasn’t an art major in college, but he took a lot of art classes, which was the foundation that really helped him land the job.
“I always took art just for fun, just for enjoyment purposes. And they said, ‘Well, will you teach one class?,’ and I said sure. Then, it went to two classes; then it went to three classes,” Eich said.
Since securing his job as an art teacher, Eich has had quite the influence on his students.
“Throughout middle school, I’ve never really had an art teacher since I used to go to a small, private middle school. Eich was the first teacher that knew the different abilities of his students and played into that,” senior Yasmeen Serhal said. “He cherished all forms of art and appreciated it even if he couldn’t quite understand its appeal. Having an art teacher who understood art, someone who never idolized a certain ability over another and someone who was willing to give you the hard and true reality of the art industry really made me improve immensely in my art and feel confident about it.”
Art doesn’t necessarily have the best reputation when it comes to income. There’s even that phrase “starving artist” that gets thrown around a lot when people think of artists. And for a long time, another idea people generally had about art is that selling paintings is the only way to make money as an artist.
“What people don’t understand is that our society is embedded in the arts. I don’t think we recognize artists in the way we should. Now with digital, it’s phenomenal,” Eich said. “I mean, everything is being produced digitally like they can’t believe. So you’ve got that entire industry of advertising, the web [and] all the stuff that deals with movies. All that stuff is art that is coming from learning the arts. You gotta learn the basics of the arts, so you can expand.”
Eich’s firm belief in the arts and his faith in his students have allowed many of them to gain the confidence to pursue higher levels of art in the future.
“I [feel] [like] if I had someone who was less enthusiastic, I would [not] have as much confidence to do this career. It’s a tough place and if you don’t love the career, you can easily drop,” senior Gerardo Uribe said. “Not to mention I’ve seen many [students] have very low confidence in their abilities, but he never gave up on them. He is also like that sassy grandpa that messes with you but has so much wisdom and support to bestow upon you. Overall, he has been the old sensei to my art journey.”
It isn’t just Eich’s artistic ability and wisdom that’s going to be missed by his students.
“I’m going to miss his wittiness for sure and his stories. His stories always had me cracking up,” junior AJ Mendoza said. “If students talked to him and got to know him, he’s a really nice guy to be around. He won’t beat around the bush.”
It’s bittersweet for his students as they see Eich’s last year of teaching at FVHS go by.
“It’s sad how he’s retiring, but I understand and I’m happy for him. He’s helped so many kids and impacted many as well,” Mendoza said. “My favorite time will always be the day I and some lucky students were taken to the Disney and Pixar animation studio. That was a blast, and I’m so grateful that I was able to experience that because of him. I hope he enjoys his retirement and has a happy life.”
Since Eich has always encouraged his students to go after their dreams and aspirations, they’re also hoping he’ll pursue what he wants in life.
“I don’t know if I may ever have an art teacher whose impact reached me as strongly as Eich,” Serhal said. “Not to say I will never learn from another art teacher, but Eich was there at the perfect time for me. I hope his retirement is fun and he gets that dog that he’s always wanted!”
His students won’t be disappointed to learn that Eich’s plans after retirement include enjoying his hobbies more often: ballroom dancing, perhaps getting his pilot’s license again, traveling to different states, photography and yes, he’s also planning on getting that dog.
“I would like to get a really good dog again, [a] golden retriever, maybe a border collie, something along those lines. Train it, take care of it and then hit the road to hit some of the areas I haven’t seen,” Eich said. “I’ve been to New Zealand and Australia due to lifeguarding and going on educational changes and competitions, but I haven’t gone across the United States.”
His students are cherishing the last school days they have with him before he leaves. They’re also hoping to make him proud.
“For those who know Eich, please give him many thanks for what he has done and appreciate him while he is here,” Uribe said. “And as for myself, I hope to make him proud by becoming a professional myself. The work he has done will stay with me my whole life and though he would be content teaching someone about art and animation, I want to go further and become a professional to say that he was the one that helped me start this whole journey.”
