Mr. Matzke

While studying the Cold War this week, I am reminded of one of my favorite high school teachers, Mr. Matzke.

I often wasn’t above an average student, but in ninth grade I found myself in his American History survey class.

And I found myself loving history.

What Mr. Matzke did very well was walk us through history and show how each unit or theme fit with the next. He didn’t just teach one chapter, drop it, and move on to another. Mr. Matzke taught history as a fluid concept.

Now, in terms of teaching, he was pretty traditional. I recall entering his class room and eyeing the blackboard (it was green actually) and seeing it filled with notes.

As I said, pretty traditional. But unlike most lecture and note taking classes, Mr, Matzke always was able to punctuate the key events with humorous and interesting narratives that somehow made the information up on the board far more relevant as I copied it down. For some reason, and this is what was magical about his classes, those notes on the board - and his stories - stuck in my head on their way from the black board to my tablet.

It’s been over 20 years since I had the class, but I can still remember our discussions of the alliances that led to WWI or island hopping in WWII or the muckrakers.

Before I even knew it, I found myself totally engaged and looking forward to this class above all others.

I even remember reading the history book . . . for fun. And that never happened before.

Sometimes, I’d finish a unit and find myself going back over questions just to see what I could remember.

History came alive in Mr. Matzke’s class, and I fell in love with it.

And I became confident as a student. Mr. Matzke - as the only social studies teacher - had me as a jackass seventh and eighth grader where I just goofed around. So his expectations for me weren’t that high.

But one day while playing “beep and bop” (his legendary review game), he asked a bonus question about Upton Sinclair. And before I even knew it, I was stating, “he was a muckraker who wrote The Jungle.”

Mr. Matzke said, “Yes.” Then it hit him that I had said it. He looked back at me with this whimsical look and said, “You’re right.” Then he smiled and that was a turning point for me in my early high school years.
It was no small coincidence that I’d become a history minor after that class.