Kyle Smith, endeared as Mr. Smith by students, has been expanding on the right side of history at SHS for 29 years, starting all the way back in 1997. As an Advanced U.S. history teacher, history is an area he related to best and found most interesting. Aside from APUSH, his schedule includes 2 hours of credit recovery and 7th hour Senior Social.
Although he keeps most lessons serious, he has a way with his humor.
“Mr Smith does a great job at keeping things serious while also giving students room to be silly,” an unnamed Senior Social student said.
Iconic APUSH t-shirts share closet space with his typical professional dress, when he’s not wearing a tie, he might be wearing his own face, complemented with the names of past students on the backside.
“He’s really funny, he makes me laugh, he’s very easy to talk to and very personable,” his past student, senior Leah Gavin said.
His references to well known media, and his willingness to be open to new advances in adolescent humor, make banter in the classroom familiar and memorable. It’s an easy way to engage students and break the tension of an extra long lesson.
His approachability and the connections that he develops with students makes him a strong figure in the SHS halls.
“I enjoy getting to know students and helping them become critical thinkers,” Smith said.
His overall goal is to get students to have an appreciation for history and life long learning, simultaneously facilitating knowledge and dissection of current events.
Not only does he motivate participation in our democracy, he ensures students are knowledgeable in its importance, voter registration, and election dates.
Smith makes a point in every classroom to connect past events to those of the present. By doing this he allows fruitful discussion and opinions of any side.
While a 500 year old book isn’t pleasant to read, his implementation of philosopher Machiavelli into his senior class’ curriculum gives extremely valuable insight into our current administration.
“I look forward to his class and talking to him. He always pushes me to be my best and he motivates me to use my critical thinking skills,” Gavin says. “The most important thing I’ve learned is how to use my critical thinking skills to analyze different sources and perspectives before formulating my own opinion and perspective and how to have productive conversations with larger groups of people”
For Smith, this year’s biggest achievement includes coaching the Mock Trial team to state. Allotting “making it this long” as his biggest career achievement.
When it comes to leaving behind a legacy, he hopes students and colleagues will remember him as a good teacher, who enjoyed teaching, had a good sense of humor, and hopefully never forget him, as Smith happily joked.
