The Natural, Indeed!

Part of the Family dept.

Sep 21, 2025

Robert Redford (aka Grampa) and Sybille Szaggars - Graduation Day Marin Academy 2013

Living in Marin County, as I did from 1987 until 2014 was an experience I’ll always treasure. If you found yourself in the trendy, hip-but-humble environs of Mill Valley, San Rafael, or Fairfax though, you learned to stifle your star-struck giddiness when you’d inevitably run into some ridiculously famous person on the street.

After almost three years as primarily a musician in Marin, I began my classroom teaching career in 1993 as the ‘computer guy’ at San Rafael High School. I moved from public- to the college prep world in 1996 where I parlayed my great Iowa Public School education into a position as Director of Technology at The Branson School and later at Marin Academy (ma.org)

It was at that time that I began teaching the children of some of those ridiculously famous people.

James Redford, was the son of Robert Redford and Lola Van Wagenen. James tragically passed away in 2009, but in 2004 James and his wife Kyle hired me to teach their son Dylan bass guitar lessons in their Fairfax CA. home.

James, in addition to his roles as an environmental activist and as an executive with The Redford Center, was a pretty rockin’ guitar player too. In talking about education we found that we shared a passion for finding ways to motivate kids that the system often found hard to reach.

He turned his passionate concern into a moving documentary entitled Paper Tigers which opened a lot of eyes to the effects of trauma on the resilience on young learners.

The documentary, directed by Redford and Executive Producer Karen Pritzker follows James Sporleder a Washington State teacher in his attempts to help a then-increasing number of students who’ve suffered deeper-than-normal challenges as they work their way back to a place where they can transcend their problems and transform their lives for the better.

James worked tirelessly to produce a fine documentary of the Author Amy Tan and her immensely popular work the Joy Luck Club. Unfortunately, he didn’t live to see the project aired publically.

I met Sporleder in Des Moines as he was a guest of Des Moines Public Schools (DMPS) promoting his book (The Trauma Informed School) detailing his successful method of dealing with students, families and even schools suffering with aspects of deep trauma that too-often are a part of our ‘modern living.’

The Redfords were gracious, generous and down-to-earth in a way that I still deeply appreciate to this day.

Count me as just one more person who will miss both Robert and James Redford.

The Natural, Indeed!

Part of the Family dept.

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