Back to His History: Q&A With East Alum and New Social Studies Student Teacher, Donald Roth

East alum Donald Roth is back inside the columbia blue hallways for the first time since 2011. But this time, he’s not a student — he’s a teacher. For the past three years he’s attended Ottawa University and as part of the program, he has started student teaching in Steve Klein’s World Regional Studies class and Andrea Franklin’s World History class.

What was your reaction when you found out that you’d be student teaching?

“[It was a] little overwhelming just because going from student to teacher is a bit of a transition. But given I actually went here for high school, it helped make [the transition] a little easier. I actually had Ms. Franklin in my sophomore year.”

What is your favorite random history fact?

“The potato built our modern world. Without that, Europe wouldn’t have been able to overcome all their famines. They wouldn’t have their population boom, which made them start going out to colonize, [and they] wouldn’t have had the Industrial Revolution.”

What grade do you want to teach when you become a teacher?

“Initially, I wanted to teach seniors, but because the two classes I’m doing right now are freshman and sophomore, I kind of appreciate doing those more. Just because if I were to get a job [at East], [I could] actually watch them grow and progress. [That’s] a little bit of wholesomeness.”

What are you hoping to gain from being a student teacher?

“Just the experience of teaching. It’s pretty easy to lecture to a camera and not really be able to engage with people, but that’s what this opportunity is providing me with. I’m able to interact, getting to know people. It’s just more of a human connection to the teaching side of things.”

What will your teaching style be like?

“[I’m] going to be focusing on trying to present as much information as possible, but in a way that allows people to digest it. So not necessarily doing a bunch of schoolwork per se, but instead of lecturing, [I’ll] try to do videos so that it’s a little more condensed, and then be able to maybe do some sort of project or class work to blend that creativity within the actual information.”

What do you hope your students will walk away from the class knowing?

“Just the context of how history is everything, everywhere, all the time. Nothing isn’t not history. Like my random fact that if the potato hadn’t been a thing, our world wouldn’t be here today. […] No matter how far past [history] may be, it still is relevant to the modern day.”

What do you want your students and other teachers to know about you?

“Socrates was tried for three crimes: condemning the state, defying the gods and corrupting the youth […]. In my life, so far I’ve done the first two, and so I say jokingly that going into teaching, I would like to corrupt the youth in a good way [by] teaching as truthful as possible, even in face of backlash.”