Central Welcomes New Teacher Daniel Gavin

Emily Engel, Staff Writer

 

During the 2017-18 school year, Central has welcomed several new teachers to their staff. One such teacher is social studies teacher, Mr. Daniel Gavin 

“This is my first year of teaching, I student taught in Central with Mr. Behrens in the beginning of the fall semester so I was here for 8 weeks then I went to Taiwan for the rest of my student teaching.” Gavin said. 

In college, he studied History and education at Iowa state. This semester Mr. Gavin teaches economics and FACTS, though he would like to teach history. 

“Economics is a really interesting subject to teach and learn, it’s really challenging but I like the class because it introduces students to a different way of thinking about things they think about daily.” Gavin said. 

This is his first year as a teacher, though Mr. Gavin has always been drawn to the profession. He liked supporting people and helping them reach their goals. As a teacher he has some goals of his own. 

“A goal of mine is, especially through economics, getting students to think of their everyday life in a different way. Just a more critical way, analyzing the decisions they make and the costs of those decision, it’s not something typically people have done before.” Gavin said. 

Studying history in college, he saw the importance of learning to understand people of different time periods and to try and relate to the choices that they made in their lives. He found that the skills taught when studying Social Studies can be used in life, no matter what career students go in to. 

“Something social studies can be great for, and I hope my class does too, is teaching empathy, being able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes is so important especially once you graduate and move on to college and career. Critical thinking and empathy are things that I want my students to take away.”, Gavin said.   

Mr. Gavin knew he wanted to teach at Central since he started student teaching in the building. He says he felt welcomed into the building and loved how kind faculty and students were. He appreciated the diversity in the student body. 

“I really love the social studies department here, everyone is very supportive and as a new teacher it’s great to be able to talk to veteran teachers and get a lot of advice. Also, Central is a comprehensive high school so it brings people together from all of Omaha and that diversity in every category brings strength to these class rooms that can’t be found elsewhere.” he said. 

A challenge of starting teaching was adjusting to how big of a school Central is, though as he has settled in Mr. Gavin has been able to learn about himself and his future goals through teaching.   

“I have found that a strength that I have is relating to students so a goal I have as an educator is just to have positive relationships with them I want each of my students to have at least one person who believes in them”, Gavin said. 

Though he has only been teaching at Central for 5 weeks, he loves the school and plans to work in Central and OPS for many years to come.  

“I have an interest to someday be a college and career counselor and help people figure out what they want to do after high school.” Gavin said.