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“My three favorite parts of teaching are June, July and August,” social studies teacher Adam Michels said, laughing. “No, just kidding. That’s a common teacher’s joke,” he admitted, still laughing
Even after teaching at Lowell for 10 years, Michels still knows how to have fun with his job. “I try to let humor help me in teaching, especially with second semester seniors,” he said.
He also shares a few long-running jokes with his colleagues. “When Jazayeri first came to Lowell he shared a classroom with me,” Michels said. The two men started referring to each other as “roomies.” “We’re straight, but people get uncomfortable when we show affection for each other,” Michels said, sharing a smile with Jazayeri from across the history office.
Michels’s provocative sense of humor may have been shaped in large part by his open-minded family. “I grew up in a family where it’s not bad to bring up a new idea,” Michels said. “It’s part of a discussion.” He believes his dad, a journalist, has influenced him a lot. “If I’d ask a question, he’d always have a book on the subject,” Michels said.
This free-thinking environment enabled Michels to make his own choices when it came to religion, specifically with Judaism. “After I had my bar mitzvah and got all those presents, I was done being Jewish,” Michels said. “But I went to Sunday school one day after that so I felt I wasn’t just doing it for the bar mitzvah,” he added. However, Michels does feel that he got something more out of the rite of passage than just the gifts. “Even though I’m not very religious I feel that was a big stage of personal growth for me,” he said.
Michels experienced another important stage in his life when he attended University of California-Berkeley to major in Political Science. The racially diverse campus was a far cry from his “very white” Marin County hometown of San Anselmo. “When I went to Berkeley, I opened my eyes a lot,” Michels admitted. During his college years, he also got a job in a hotel to pick up some extra cash. Unaware that the hotel served as a meeting place for swingers, Michels soon discovered that couples went there to swap mates for the evening. “I have to say, when I found out, I thought ‘this will be interesting,’” he said.
After graduating from Berkeley, Michels tried his hand at journalism, interning at a television station. However, he decided not to pursue a career in that field. “I felt that I didn’t have the necessary outgoing personality,” he said. Michels also decided that becoming a lawyer was not the right path for him. “I ended up taking law classes and I didn’t like them,” he said. He then found his calling — teaching. “I knew that I liked learning and that I liked working with kids,” Michels said.
Michels earned his teaching credential at San Francisco State University. He soon got his first taste of Lowell as a summer school teacher. That fall, he started as a full-time teacher at Burton High School. According to Michels, his first year was “very trying.”
However, the job had a saving grace — his colleagues. “I had a great department at Burton,” he said. “We would play soccer and football together.” Unfortunately, Burton’s “really oppressive” principal at the time made work rather unpleasant. After teaching at Burton for four years, he was ready for a change. “I called up Paul Cheng on a whim and he said ‘come over tomorrow,’” Michels said. Several people interviewed him that day. “The sheer number of people made me relaxed, because I thought it was amusing,” he said. Sure enough, Michels snagged the job. “I think my sense of humor made me appealing,” he said.
From the start, Michels has tried his best to get his students to look beyond their textbooks. His well-known “Urban Plan” project does just that: Students design a made-up city and use their knowledge of economics to incorporate urban issues. The project also involves public speaking. “I’ve noticed it’s really challenged students out of their comfort zones,” Michels said. Michels admits that he also struggles with public speaking. “I don’t think it comes naturally to me,” he said. “But I think I’ve gotten more comfortable with myself.”
After long days at work speaking to students and grading assignments, Michels heads home to his wife and two kids. Of Taiwanese origin, his wife worked a women’s rights activist and as an editor-in-chief of a feminist magazine in her home country. “My wife is by far the most talkative person in her family, and that’s the part I’m most attracted to,” he said, smiling.
Michels believes that San Francisco’s multi-cultural environment is the perfect place to raise his kids. “It’s a great, liberal, diverse city,” he said. “The fact that my kids are mixed race doesn’t seem to matter at all.”
However, there is one twist to Michels’s home life — his mother-in-law lives with the family. “It’s not part of my culture to live with your mother-in-law, but since my wife gave up so much to live here, I said ‘okay,’” he said.
Unfortunately, she and Michels butt heads pretty frequently. “I’m very direct even though I’m soft-spoken,” he said. “I know if my mother-in-law spoke more English we would fight much more,” he admitted. Luckily, his wife “filters out most of the bad things so we don’t hurt each other’s feelings,” Michels said. For the most part, he has adapted to her quirky behavior and her very traditional Taiwanese cooking.
However, there is still one line Michels won’t cross. “I’m really not into chicken feet,” he said. |
