I am a father of 4, two sons and two daughters, all whom have graduated from high school and have gone on to various institutions of higher learning. I spent the first 30 years of my adult life in the plastics manufacturing industry with 25 years working and operating my family's injection molding business. At the age of 50 I went back to school to fulfill my lifelong dream of becoming a history teacher. I graduated from Johnson State College with honors.
I enjoy bringing history to life allowing my students the opportunity to see firsthand how history affects the society we live in and how we can use history to make positive changes in our communities and the world we live in. My students have done projects like making castles from the Middle Ages using everything from candy, Popsicle sticks, cardboard, paper mache and Legos. We have written to ambassadors of foreign countries while studying world history and receiving replies from every embassy written to. I have taught segments of history using movies where students evaluate the movie for historical accuracy. This has usually opened the avenue for great discussion about the era being studied. My students have learned the difference between primary and secondary documents and why they make a difference when researching and simply reading about history.
I enjoy working with teenagers and adults and am truly blessed when one of my students comes to understand why and how a certain event in history affects the way we do things in the present. I believe learning history should be a fun experience. I do not get hung up on remembering a lot of dates. My focus is on understanding history through studying the events themselves.
Please feel free to email me with any questions you may have concerning my style of teaching.