Jens Sorensen, a die-hard Packers fan since the 60’s, is retiring next year. Sorensen has been a familiar face in Morton West for twenty eight years. Sorensen is known for the connections he has built with students. His humor and his ability to take a joke shapes the overall vibe of his class and classroom.
Sorensen grew up in the 60’s in a small town of Peotone, Illinois, which was home to fewer than three thousand people, a small nurturing place where everyone knew everyone. Sorensen attended Peotone High School where he met his future wife and played three sports: football, baseball, and basketball. He attended UIC to become a teacher with the goal of positively impacting students’ lives. Sorensen views himself as more of an “older student” than a teacher, learning as much from his classes as they do from him. Over the years of being a staff member of Morton West he’s made plenty of memories from the playful pranks, in and out of the classroom, to more heartfelt moments.
Sorensen’s aspiration for being a teacher formed while hanging out with his friends and reminiscing on past high school experiences years later. During that conversation, Sorensen realized how important and impactful those 4 years of high school are, with a big chunk being what happens in classrooms. Remembering how impactful some of his teachers were, he wanted to impact students’ lives in a positive way as his teachers did for him. With the idea of positively impacting students’ lives and their fundamental four years of high school, he finally took teaching into consideration. Sorensen started his first year teaching at Morton in F hall, in the academy. And, as every new teacher knows, the first year isn’t easy.
Sorensen stated, “It was like riding a bronco.”
When asking staff about Sorensen, Mr. Ruff, Morton West music teacher, had only good things to say after a 15-year friendship with Sorensen. When asked about Sorensen’s character he stated, “All I would say is, Yens, Mr. Sorensen, is one of the most thoughtful people I’ve ever met, if not the most thoughtful person.” When asked to elaborate, he gave an example, he stated, “If you go walk through the teachers’ mailboxes, you’ll see little, little notes, little things where Mr. Sorensen is just thinking about other people, and he’ll act on it. he’ll do something kind just out of the blue, just randomly, and I find that pretty rare and inspirational.”
When asked about advice he would give to students, Sorensen stated, “Whatever it is, it is discipline: You have to find your own discipline.”
Looking back on his own experience, Sorensen recalled his former English teacher Miss Stacy, and regretted not thanking people who shaped his life sooner. Sorensen stated, “As long as I’m teaching you’re teaching,” in a phone call on a late night grading papers; a fitting point of view for a man whose spend almost three decades passing the same inspiration to his students.
