Grace Shay ’10
Managing Editor

In room 1033, the eager sophomores in Rob Rogers’ U.S. History class settle into clumps around the tables in the computer lab.

“Who is ready to peer review right now?” asks Rogers, who also teaches Western Humanities. “Raise your hand.”

Dutifully, the students prepare to share and edit their essays with their classmates at their computers, as Rogers, who is new to the social studies department, watches.

Due to budget cuts, the Board of Education eliminated the computer science program, in which Rogers taught Multimedia, Desktop Publishing, AP Computer Science, Robotics, and Computer Problem Solving classes, he said.

As a result, Rogers began teaching social studies courses in the 2009-10 school year.

“I think what I most miss [about teaching computer science] is the brainstorming and innovation in the Robotics classes,” Rogers said. “[There] is nothing quite like watching students design and build their own devices, maybe even break them down and rebuild with a better idea…it is very exciting.”

Rogers, however, received an undergraduate degree “in History, and my teaching credential is in Social Studies.”

Rogers said that there was some “anxiety of moving up into Social Studies”—quite literally, as he joined the department offices in room 2035, when he previously had an office adjacent to the computer lab.

“It had been nine years since I’d last taught a history class,” said Rogers. “I had been a department of one for about five years. It was a little disconcerting to move up into a large department, to have to dust off those areas in my brain and start thinking like the historian I went to college to be.”

Emily Ashken ’12, a student in Rogers’ U.S. History class, said, “We have fun and learn at the same time, which is nice. He definitely knows a lot about technology and when we can, we use it. And he knows how to use Blackboard, which is good.”

Rogers, however, is “enjoying being back in the traditional classroom and teaching history. It is a subject I love a great deal.”

In the future, Rogers said he would like to further fuse technology and education together.

“I also love technology, and finding ways to use it in school and everyday life,” he said. “My future goals fit somewhere in between. I hope to start the Library Media Specialist ARC (Alternate Route to Certification) program next summer. Then in the future become a Library Media Specialist.”

Back in the computer lab, Rogers’ students begin sharing their essays, but one student had trouble logging on to her computer.

“Mr. Rogers, aren’t you smart with computers and stuff?” she asked.

Rogers just grinned.