In his 27th year, Preston Tucker, interim Dean of Faculty, Director of Curriculum Innovation, and history teacher, has taken two Sabbaticals. Mr Tucker spent his most recent sabbatical—which he took last semester—traveling Europe and mastering the delicate art of mushroom foraging.
By Adam Sutro '25
Mr. Tucker traversing the Camino de Santiago somewhere in Spain.
What is a sabbatical?
By the book, a sabbatical is a break from work, which allows for teachers to travel, rest, and take up a routine inherently different from their typical occupation. At the College Preparatory School, teachers are eligible for sabbatical after 10 years of teaching. Sabbaticals at College Prep are generally a semester long. If teachers wish to go on sabbatical, they apply, and then administration chooses who to grant sabbatical (though, some semesters there are no teachers who get sabbatical). During sabbatical, the school will hire a substitute teacher to take up their duties while they are away.
How did Mr. Tucker get to his sabbatical?
Tucker started under the title of Technology Integrator, working in this role for two years before becoming the school’s Director of Technology (Edwin’s current role). At the time, College Prep technology consisted of two Internet computer labs and a laptop cart. Computers were primarily used for labs in science class. Eventually, Tucker, who had studied history as an undergraduate, earning a BA from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, decided he wanted to go back to school in order to earn teaching credentials. In 2001, he took a year off to pursue a degree in education, picking up an Ed.M. from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.
Credential in hand, Tucker returned to College Prep and reclaimed his duties as Director of Technology, continuing in this position until 2004, when he finally took on a section of US History. By 2005, Preston Tucker was a bona-fide, full-time College Prep history teacher, grading junior year term papers about topics ranging from the Civil Rights Movement to the Vietnam War.
In 2013, Tucker took his first sabbatical, spending time at home with his young children. His sabbatical hire, Daniel Song, is now a legend in the history department. Daniel Song and Preston Tucker were a dynamic US History duo for three years, until Tucker became the Director of Curriculum Innovation in 2016. Since 2016, Tucker has been a part-time history teacher, sacrificing time in the classroom to create major, meaningful change to the fabric which underlies all academic activities at College Prep.
Notably, Tucker was the founding director of Common Classroom, and also worked to change the schedule from a model where students would have every class every day to the current model. Tucker and his fellow curriculum committee colleagues experimented with many different schedules, including a hybrid schedule in which some days students would meet with all their classes for 45 minutes, and some days students would only meet with some classes for more time, before finally settling on the current every-other-day model.
In 2023, Tucker noticed that there weren’t a lot of applications for sabbatical, and decided with his family that they were in a position where another sabbatical would be manageable. So, Tucker applied for and was eventually granted his second sabbatical, which took place during the spring semester of 2023. Tucker is very grateful to have had such a long and stable tenure as a teacher at the College Preparatory School and the familial flexibility to take his sabbatical, and he hopes that all long-term teachers are afforded the same opportunity for sabbatical that he was granted.
The Adventures of Mr. Tucker.
Mr. Tucker gives a thumbs up in front of a limestone rock formation at the Picos de Europa in Castile and León, Spain.
For Tucker, it wasn’t even a debate. About a month into his travels throughout Europe, he had finally stumbled across the greatest hike he’d ever done in his life. The hike was at Picos de Europa National Park, a treasure of northern Spain just a 2-3 hour drive west of Bilbao.
The funny part about all of this is that Picos de Europa was not even part of Tucker’s original sabbatical agenda. Tucker’s time in Spain started on the Camino Frances, one of the many possible Camino de Santiago (the Way of St. James) routes present in Spain. Tucker, a historian, had hoped to plunge into the tide of the true pilgrimage experience, and take a long through-hike, with the goal of coming into a less-stressful, peaceful state of mind along the way. But, when you’re traveling alone on your own terms, you get the chance to switch things up when plans don’t go the way you envisioned them. Tucker did not finish the Camino de Santiago, but he did find himself in the limestone peaks of Picos de Europa, marveling at a diverse variety of landscape, from pristine, blue alpine lakes cradled amidst the snow-crested, craggy mountain terrain to the rolling green hills speckled with cutesy Spanish villages. At the end of his voyage, Tucker could not have been more happy with the way things unfolded.
Picos de Europa National Park. Castile and León, Spain.
But, let’s go to the start. Tucker actually spent most of his sabbatical at home with his two kids, Liam and Lincoln, his wife, Sarah, and his dog Mini. During the school year, Tucker is typically very occupied. He spends a lot of his time at school, obviously, teaching Atlantic Worlds and assuming his responsibilities as Director of Curriculum Innovation, but he also has his own “homework,” such as grading students’ work (especially around the time of major assignments) and taking on other administrative duties. During his sabbatical, Preston Tucker felt as College Prep students feel in the summertime when they are void of responsibilities (for the most part), able to just go with the flow of life. And so Tucker used this liberty to be productive, serving as the Swiss Army Knife of his family, doing and being whatever was needed, checking item after item off his list in liberating fashion.
Beyond the time he spent at home helping out around the house, Tucker had a lot of time to himself. Naturally, because he had a long, rigorous journey to prepare for, he spent a lot of time outdoors getting ready for the Camino. Tucker went on lots of long hikes, spending time in the local woods and parks of the Bay Area. However, the most exciting part about the time he spent in nature became mushroom foraging, another activity which Tucker had not originally penciled down as a major part of his sabbatical activities.
As a newborn expert in mushroom foraging, Tucker developed a spidey-sense for finding wild chanterelle mushrooms. Chanterelles are known for their distinctive goldish-orange hue, and are found in the fall and winter seasons under conifers or near oak trees (according to ForageSF). Unbelievably delicious—to those who love mushrooms—chanterelles are used in a variety of dishes, but are also good by themselves, sautéed and eaten with toast or risotto.
Chanterelle mushrooms.
When thinking about Tucker’s mushroom foraging expeditions, do not take his title of “expert” lightly. Mushroom foraging had always been a hobby for Tucker, who years ago decided to do some beginner research on the ecosystems in which chanterelles thrive so that he would be best equipped to find them out in the wild. Many times, Tucker spent long winter break days with his boys and his dog searching for chanterelles. Usually, though, they came up empty handed. But, spending increased time in chanterelle ecosystems, during the right time of year (January and February), Tucker happened to stumble upon them, and his passion for foraging was quickly reinvigorated. At his peak, Tucker would spend 6-8 hours at a time in the woods with his dog, uncovering undergrowth and keeping his eyes peeled for chanterelles – in many ways, it was like hunting for gold. And it wasn’t by luck that Tucker developed his chanterelle-finding skills—mushroom hunting is in many ways an environmental science, in which the forager becomes familiar with a variety of particular environmental factors, such as surrounding plants, sun angle, and hill slope as keys to mushroom growth. Eventually, Tucker found so many chanterelles that he was able to sell them and turn his hobby into a source of income. During any one mushroom expedition, Tucker could collect up to four pounds of mushrooms, which he could then sell for about $15o to local consumers including those as esteemed as Chez Panisse, the critically acclaimed Berkeley farm-to-table restaurant that earned the title of “Best Restaurant in America” by Gourmet magazine in 2001 and awarded Michelin stars from 2006 to 2009. For the early months of 2024, Tucker was the mushroom guy in the Bay Area.
However, come April 17th, it was time for Tucker to go to Europe. For the next month and a half it would, for the most part, just be Tucker and his 25-pound Gregory backpack, thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean.
1st stop: Istanbul, Turkey. By this point in the story, it was already pretty iminent that Tucker was becoming a true explorer. However, as soon as he got to Europe, Tucker continued to add to his adventurer resumé. Istanbul’s history is primarily tethered to the Roman Empire. In 330 CE, Constantine the Great, emperor of the Roman Empire, created a new imperial capital in modern-day Istanbul called Costantinople. In Istanbul's Constantinople era, many cisterns, underground basins used for collecting rainwater, were created amidst an era of rapid agricultural and developmental advancement. Nowadays, Istanbul’s cisterns have been drained and repaired, serving as major tourist attractions. While exploring the city, Tucker happened to come across a back entrance into one of Istanbul’s great cisterns. The cistern had been rented out for an event, and was decked out with dramatic disco lighting with house music bumping in the background. It was just Tucker and a catering company, underground in a historic landmark.
Mr. Tucker, alone, in one of Istanbul's historic cisterns.
But of course there was more to Istanbul than just the cisterns. Tucker also explored the bazaars and the city’s many mosques. In fact, Tucker, despite not having any major religious affiliations, relished the time he got to spend in a variety of different houses of worship throughout his time in Europe. Tucker was drawn to the symmetrical, geometric mosaics which are a hallmark feature of mosques and which, for religious reasons, cannot display any iconography or idolatry. He found these patterns to be conducive to contemplation, and treasured the meditative time he spent in these spaces.
Next stop: The Istrian Peninsula of Croatia. From Istanbul, Tucker flew to Croatia to meet up with a close friend from college. Here, the two did a memorable week-long bike trip at a comfortable pace along the Istrian Peninsula, sponging up lots of coastal views and connecting over long chats in small, cozy villages. Of these villages, Tucker’s favorite was actually a mountainous town called Motovun, surrounded by a medieval fortress. Tucker and his buddy biked about 600 feet to get to Motovun, one of the longer and more strenuous days of their trip, and stayed the night in a room within the fortress, which overlooked the tree-filled mountains of the surrounding land.
Mr. Tucker and his college friend who he biked the Istrian Peninsula with.
After his time in Croatia, Tucker finally made his way to Spain, where he embarked on a long walk upon the Camino de Santiago. The Camino de Santiago is a network of pilgrimage routes in Spain which all lead to the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral in northwest Spain. Tucker chose to travel along the Camino Frances, one of several pilgrimage routes throughout Spain under the umbrella name Camino de Santiago. Tucker’s journey started in the Pyrenees—the mountain range along the border of both Spain and France—and got off to a rigorous start. Right off the bat, on day 1, Tucker walked 20 miles, with 5,000 feet of elevation and 4,000 feet of descent. From that point on, Tucker was on the road, hiking from one place to another, staying in hostels with other pilgrims in small Spanish villages. He lived off of Spanish tortillas—which consist of egg, potato, and cheese—coffee, and red wine, following the Camino for around two weeks.
Mr. Tucker at a village along the Camino de Santiago on a rainy day.
However, Tucker quickly found that the Camino was historically overcrowded. He felt forced to become more of a tourist, hustling to find places to sleep and stop. Tucker prefers to go with the flow, and wasn’t liking the day-to-day advanced planning he was forced to do traveling along the Camino. So, Tucker called an audible, and made the executive decision to jump ship towards Bilbao, a major city in northern Spain. He spent time in Bilbao and Madrid, doing some deep dives in museums and restaurants before he finally made his way to Picos de Europa National Park, which is where our story began some 2,000 words prior.
Fortune and gratitude: those are the words that rested in Tucker’s mind as he hiked through the limestone mountains of Picos de Europa. The past five months had been jam-packed with activities, and Tucker could not have been more thankful for the opportunity to go on such an adventure, spending so much quality time with the people most dear to him.
At the core of Tucker’s trip was ritual, but much of his adventuring was without structure, defined by free time to explore his surroundings. Sabbatical gave Tucker the opportunity to develop new tendencies and take a deep dive into his hobbies of foraging, biking, and cultural exploration. He was given a blank canvas, and the childhood freedom to paint it in whichever way he pleased. In the end, at the other side of his through-hike, he was still Tucker… or Tucker plus a ritualistic experience which has given him new values and hobbies that will last him a lifetime.
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