If you ask new English teacher Chris Kupersmith what he likes to do, he’ll tell you he likes to garden.

“I grow a vegetable garden every year,” Kupersmith said. “I give up a lot of attention to that. I really like growing basil because I like pestial. It’s like when you blend garlic, basil and olive oil together and put it on pasta.”

He’ll also tell you that he sings and plays guitar in a band.

“I play music,” he said. “I play guitar and sing and I play in an old dad rock band. With a  couple of other old dudes like me, it’s pretty fun. We usually play every Friday night. Not play shows but we’ll kinda play at each other’s house.”

But perhaps what stands out the most about Kupersmith is his YouTube channel.

His YouTube channel has content that will leave you rolling on the ground with laughter:  You’ll find videos of him singing random lyrics to burning student papers.

In a video called 2 typos, Kupersmith holds his very young baby while grading a student’s paper.  But before you know it, he’s throwing the assignment into a wood stove and watching it burn.

“A long time ago, I told students that I would burn their papers if it had more than 2 typos in their final draft,” he said. “And that particular video, the parents were friends of mine, I would never put a video up like that online of you know burning a student’s paper.”

Kupersmith made the YouTube video because he wanted it to be hilarious.

“It’s just another bit of silliness, I actually was real serious about typos because I think typos were like their a communication  from the student to the teacher,” he said. “That they really don’t care enough about this assignment because if they did they would go through and edit and like check for really obvious errors. That video was just silly [but] some people might not think it’s funny.”

Before Kupersmith taught at North, he taught at Bedford North Lawrence High School.  But he still lived in Bloomington and had to make the commute during the school week.

“That school is in the middle of nowhere,” he said, shaking with laughter.

Kupersmith was also a social worker for three years and worked with teengers.  He did some other random jobs, that also reflect the same sort of randomness as his YouTube page.   

“I  worked on a farm for a year,” he said. “Then I was in a cover band for like a long time. I did a bunch of different things, like I mowed lawns at a graveyard.”

Despite his diverse job experiences, Kupersmith has always been a family man.

“I spend a lot of time with my son, my family,” he said. “I have a 6-year-old son and my wife.”

Kupersmith began working at North to be closer to his family, home and the Bloomington community.

“It seems to me like there is a ton of school spirit here,” he said. “I see the Cougar thing is a big deal here. I  see a lot of people wearing North shirts or Cougar shirts more than any place I’ve ever taught. And of course nobody growled on the announcements at my previous schools, but also […] the mascot at my previous school was a star. Stars don’t make noises so maybe if they did, we would’ve had a noise made on the announcements.”