Andrews is an 8th grade history teacher at Iselin Middle School.
Andrews started teaching history in 2011 and he has always been interested in history and that is what his degree is. Andrews feels great about teaching history.
When Andrews found himself not satisfied with his regular job “Andrews thought for a long time what he loved doing teaching young people has always brought greatest joy to him” he said.
Andrews had the support of his family and a year of teaching students with a history teacher at Woodbridge and he taught so much about it.
Andrews wants his students to learn about how societies work, how to change them and hopefully gives them some advice on how to navigate this complex world.
The best lesson Andrews taught was when Andrews turned the class into a market place when kids had to trade poker chips to make money. He thinks it is really educational and fascinating because it teaches marketing.
Andrews said 2 things first you have to enjoy as a teacher if you’re buried then everyone will be buried and second create as many games and activities you can so the kids can pretend they are in history rather than just reading about it.
“Andrews hopes for his student appreciation for house, civilization, community and work,” he said.
The biggest thing that has changed is technology. 10 years ago Andrews was the first teacher to use technology like a laptop google classroom and Andrews was known as Mr. Google Classroom because Andrews was the first teacher to use it. Andrews used to think that technology is a fascinating invention but now Andrews thinks technology is tremendously awful because people could use AI rather than using the brain.
Ancient Greece is his favorite lesson to teach. If Andrews could see anything in the past Andrews would want to go to pre-history and see how the early humans lived like hunter-gatherers, he said
The advice he would give to someone who wants to be a history teacher is “try not to be afraid of anything, try to create activities as much as you can,” he said.
