Standing face to face with a black bear, he knew he wasn’t going to win this fight.

He played football and judo. Even then, he was no match for the bear. Luckily, it was declawed and wearing a muzzle. Otherwise, it would’ve been much grislier.

AP English Language and Composition teacher Kerry Mullis was working part time as a bouncer at a bar in college when a customer brought in a bear, asking if anyone wanted to wrestle it.

Mullis agreed, although he hadn’t gone in with the expectation that he was going to win. He just wanted to be able to say he’d done it before.

“You won’t be young forever,” Mullis said. “So I’ve always tried to find things interesting in life.”

Mullis grew up moving between various small towns in Georgia before moving to Atlanta, Chicago and finally Houston in 1981. He went to Klein High School before getting a double degree in accounting and English at Stephen F. Austin State University.

“I’d always wanted to go to law school,” Mullis said. “But my father insisted I get what he called a ‘real degree’ because to him, the only thing you can do with an English degree is teach or write.”

Mullis practiced law for 11 years in both Atlanta and Houston, first at the district attorney’s office and later at his own practice. He was putting in over 80 hours a week, and it was starting to take a toll on his family.

“My wife got pregnant, and I had to make a decision,” Mullis said. “Either continue developing my practice, which takes a huge amount of time or find some other field where I would be home and actually be able to help raise the children.”

So he switched into finance. Working in investment dealing with personal injury lawsuits, he was still using his law degree. But after the events of 9/11, which caused “a lot of financial turmoil,” he began to consider something new.

Despite having had two long careers, Mullis didn’t want to retire. He thought he would be “bored out of [his] mind” if he did.

“I was coming up on my 50th [birthday] like, ‘What am I gonna do,’” Mullis said. “So I decided to go back to my first love, which was English.”

He started off teaching 9th grade English, both on-level and Pre-AP. However, he found that he had a “very strong affinity for Pre-AP” and AP, switching to AP Language. He’s been teaching it ever since.

“It’s a constantly changing field,” Mullis said. “You’re always getting new information, new things that you have to take in and incorporate into your knowledge base.”

Not only must he constantly change and update his teaching style, a new batch of students each year can make the biggest difference.

“You not only look at what methods of teaching are the best practices, but the students themselves are very different,” Mullis said. “This is my eighth year of teaching, and the students have greatly changed in the eight years that I’ve been teaching.”

His unique approaches to teaching make the class “enjoyable and relaxed” for junior Kevin Yan, who attributes this to Mullis being a “natural conversationalist.”

“Mr. Mullis [has] a deep understanding of rhetoric and its practical applications,” Yan said. “He has a knack for making the pieces of literature we go over interactive and helps us explore different perspectives. I look forward to seeing how this year will play out.”

Having changed his career twice before settling on teaching, Mullis knows the importance of being flexible.

“To be successful in any career, you have to be willing and able to change things,” Mullis said. “Never stay the same. So, flexibility of thought and being able to modify on the fly is really important for teachers.”

When teaching, Mullis treats his students like adults, not children, since most will reach adulthood within a few years. And while he’s not exactly here to “make friends with [his] students,” he does see himself as almost a parent to them.

“I’m not responsible for them, but I’m responsible for hopefully helping them mature in their thought processes, to be ready for the real world,” Mullis said. “That’s why I teach classes the way I do.”

Junior Samantha Tran believes that Mullis is a “very opinionated person,” which is ideal for Tran since AP Language is heavily based in argumentation. His class is often “very theatrical.”

“Starting off the year, I noticed that Dr. Mullis loves to teach and keep the class engaged by asking rhetorical or open-ended questions,” Tran said. “[He] is well-versed in politics and the status quo of our domestic policies.”

Mullis plans to retire at 65 and move to the Philippines with his fiancée. But that doesn’t mean the end of his teaching career.

“I’m going to go to the Philippines to teach,” Mullis said. “Everyone studies English there. They have a program there where if I teach for three years there, I can get Filipino citizenship.”

Mullis previously had a side business of importing goods to the Philippines, leading him to visit a few times. Not only did he find the country “beautiful,” but the people were also “extremely warm and hospitable.”

“I started to contemplate what I wished to do with my life and where I wished to do it,” Mullis said. “While I have lived in multiple states in the US, in Europe and Mexico, my thoughts kept returning to the Philippines and parts of the world near the islands that I wished to experience.”

Although his path to teaching took a few turns, Mullis believes that the days of picking one career and sticking to it are gone. He tells his students to do what they love first and foremost.

“I’ve known too many people who’ve chased the money and are unhappy with what they do,” Mullis said. “Find a career or thing that you like. It’s a much better life than trying to make a lot of money.”

He also advises his students to travel if they get the chance, to try things if they can because there will come a time when they won’t be able to anymore.

“You have to be prepared for any change,” Mullis said. “Don’t get caught up in just one moment. Because that moment will pass much faster than you planned for it to.”