Teacher spotlight

Editor's note: The Osceola Sentinel-Tribune is starting an ongoing series called "Teacher Spotlight" that will highlight teachers within the Clarke Community School District.

You can never keep a good teacher away for too long.

There was a time period during Mel Miller’s education career when he took a break from teaching. The daily interaction with students is what he missed the most.

“I like ideas. I’ve always been someone who deals with ideas,” Miller said. “So, I try to think about broad lessons, the really big stuff that I want kids to learn, or what I want to expose them to or what I want them to think about, I guess. The kinds of big questions I’d like to see them ask about their life and about the world.”

Currently, Miller is a social studies teacher at Clarke Community High School. He said he is relatively new for his age when it comes to teaching in a regular classroom in the school district.

Starting out

Miller taught social studies directly out of college at a small school in western Iowa called Irwin-Kirkman. That school is now called Irwin-Kirkman-Manilla (IKM) Manning because of district consolidations.

Then, Miller stopped teaching for a few years to get married, have a family and go into different jobs, including those in the field of disabilities.

In 1993, he returned to the field of education with a job at an alternative high school in Mount Ayr.

At Clarke

Then, Miller taught at Clarke’s alternative school up until three years ago. When a social studies position opened up at the high school, Miller decided to get back to his roots of teaching social studies.

The classes Miller teaches are world history I and II (ancient and modern world), government, global studies and contemporary world issues.

“I’m a historian for the most part, so world history is probably the most up my alley,” Miller said. “I like history. Government’s pretty good, too. I’m a political science major, also.”

His array of classes include students from freshman to seniors.

Daily challenges

When it comes to understanding the main challenges of teaching, as well as the challenges of teaching history, Miller can provide the answer to both aspects of education.

“The most challenging part about teaching history is the broadness of history, especially world history,” he said. “I’m talking about from the time we were hunters and gatherers to the present day. It’s a lot of stuff to cover.”

This means a lot of thought has to go into picking and choosing the right curriculum to teach, Miller added.

As for what’s difficult about teaching in general, Miller said it’s about knowing the students’ diversity in levels of understanding and their varied learning styles.

“Trying to design your lessons so your reaching the kid who’s struggling to grasp your subject, and yet, keep the kid really gets it thinking more deeply about what they need to thinking about,” Miller said. “And, delivering it in a way that reaches all of them.”