Mr. Rogers, a well known History teacher, that also sponsors the popular Cars and Coffee Club-  tells us how he discovered teaching was for him.

Q:  Let’s get started! First, how did you know teaching was the job for you?

Mr. Rogers: Honestly, it kind of happened by accident. I had a lot of really cool teachers in junior high and high school, and some of them I still keep in touch with – some of them I still work with! And when I was in college, I studied a lot of history and political science stuff, just because that’s what I was into. And then, at a certain point, I honestly don’t know if I remember when, but, at a certain point in my studies, I kind of realized I could just do this. I could just spend my time researching and learning and writing and stuff, and then I could teach high school kids that material. So I’d still get to enjoy what I do, and I still get to,  you know, have a captive audience I can tell jokes to and stuff but also   teach history. I think it was a realization that really…    Like I said, I don’t really remember when that happened, but, I mean, I was in college, and it just kind of clicked, and I was, like, oh, of course.

Q: That’s amazing! Next, what is your favorite part about the job?

Mr. Rogers: I don’t know… It’s  cliché or whatever, but it’s you guys, like, y’all are fun. I love doing what I do. I love “nerding” out,  and getting up there and getting sweaty and talking about river valley civilizations or whatever. I love that stuff, obviously, but, you know, like you guys are what makes it fun. Teachers, we get to pick kind of where we want to go, like, what level of school we want to teach. Elementary school kids – I can’t roast them, they don’t get it, that’ll make them sad! And Junior High kids scare me. That’s where human beings learn how to be mean. I don’t like that. But you guys are great. It’s a lot fun to be around y’all. You guys are at this kind of stage in your life where you are really well informed.

You know a lot about your world,  but you’re actively in the process of learning about everybody else’s, and it’s really fun. I don’t know how often y’all really realize that, but, as teachers, we realize that every day. It’s a lot of fun to kind of help walk you through that.

Q: Have you had any students keep in touch with you after high school and tell you the amazing things they’ve done?

Mr. Rogers: Yeah, oh yeah! I’ve got one of my students from seven or eight years ago, he just graduated from law school last year. He’s a lawyer, and I’m super proud. You know, it’s great. I’ve got another student of mine, who’s going to school… she’s graduating this year, I think in May, to be a teacher also. It’s great. I keep up with students from the past through social media, usually. You know, it’s like they’re my kids. That’s how we talk about it as teachers, like “oh yeah, these are my kids!” You know, and seeing you guys grow up and stuff… it’s amazing.

Q: That’s so sweet! And then shifting to the decorations around your room… if you had to pick between Star Wars and Cars, which one would you say is your favorite?

Mr. Rogers: I don’t know. I genuinely spend a lot of my spare time indulging in one or the other. If I had to pick? I don’t know. Truly, I don’t know. I want to say cars just because, like, you know, I have to drive one and use one all the time and stuff, and Star Wars is something that I choose to watch and enjoy. And I have to have a car, so maybe that would be more practical. But it’s just both of those kind of hobbies are a big part of me.

Q: What is your favorite Star Wars media?

Mr. Rogers: Empire Strikes Back is my favorite movie. Andor is my favorite show. It’s not just my favorite Star Wars show, it might be my favorite show of all time. It’s perfect. It’s wonderful. I love it. I’m re-watching it for however the many-th time, but I’m watching it with my wife for the first time, so she’s getting into it too. It’s a lot of fun. It’s just everything about it. It’s just so beautiful. I love Star Wars.

Q: Awesome. And then, I want to know some of your favorite weird history facts.

Mr. Rogers:  Favorite weird history facts that are appropriate for this interview… So you know, when we talk about the Pyramids of Giza being built, around  2500 or so BCE, there were still woolly mammoths alive at that same time. Not very many of them, and they were concentrated on an island north of Siberia, but there were woolly mammoths alive while the pyramids were being built. That’s a bonkers kind of timeline to mix together. There’s also a little… I don’t know if I’d call it like a fun fact or anything, but my favorite little like chapter of history, or one of them, certainly is during World War II, there was an all-female bomber battalion for the Soviet Union. It was the group of pilots that the Nazis feared the most, and it was these Soviet women because they were flying – this is World War II, but they were flying World War I era aircraft, so made out of wood and canvas – and they would fly over the Nazi camps at night at a super low altitude, cut the engines, and then drop bombs on them as they glided over them in silence. Then they’d restart the engines and fly away afterwards. They had a 100 percent success rate. I don’t even know how many Nazis they killed, but it’s such a cool story. And then the Nazis heard about what was going on, and they called them the “Nachthexen”, which in German means the night witches, and it’s just super cool.

Q: That’s awesome. What do you say is your favorite unit to teach in the whole class?

A: When we get to World War I. I’m not one of those history teachers, necessarily, that’s just like, what’s the next bloody thing we have to talk about, you know? But the social aspect of it is crazy. World War I is this real, terrible juxtaposition of old world and new world. You get all the new military technologies, like there’s machine guns, there’s chemical and biological warfare, there’s grenades. There’s all this stuff, but they’re still communicating with carrier pigeons, you know. They’re digging holes in the ground in the trenches and stuff. And if you zoom out politically, it’s kind of just the glorified Family Feud, you know, the leaders of so many of those European countries were all related to each other. They grew up playing  in their backyards together and stuff. It’s just wild. There’s so much craziness that happens during and around World War I. That’s my favorite.

Q: Obviously you found the perfect job, but  if you weren’t a history teacher, what would you choose to be?

Mr. Rogers: I’ve got some other hobbies and stuff, and I feel like I could spin into a career if I was dreaming. But I really like to write. I kind of fancied myself a writer when I was younger, and if I’m dreaming, I think I’m an automotive journalist. I would like to write about cars, like, you know, test out and drive cars and stuff, and then write about it, give reviews and stuff. Maybe build one of my own a couple times, you know, and just bring people through that, on YouTube or whatever. That’s what I would like.