I’ve had the privilege to be able to take Mr. Luke Oakman’s social studies classes for three years throughout my high school career. This year, the seniors are enjoying the Contemporary Issues class. 

“Oakman runs a cool class, you are able to put your head down and work and have fun,” senior Cedrick Owens said.

Oakman is what I like to call “the cool teacher.” He is serious about teaching, yet gives us enough freedom to learn the topic in a fun and relatable way.

“My favorite topic in my nine years of teaching would be this year in AP Government class because an election is coming up, and I like teaching them how the government works,” Oakman said.

In his freshman class, Oakman divided the students into groups during World History class. The class was covering the World Wars. A memorable assignment was when the class was broken into groups, and each group was given a country at the Potsdam Conference to negotiate terms and come to peace. That assignment was fun and also gave the students a look into what they had to do during their meeting. These mini projects can help students remember some information when they take higher level classes during their junior and senior years.

“What motivates me to teach is being able to have summers off with my kid, ” Oakman said jokingly. “I guess my real answer would be to teach kids how the real world works outside of school.”

To help students understand the Mongolian Empire and their advantages, Oakman took his class outside and built catapults in an attempt to knock down the other team’s base. This was extremely cool and helped students understand the change in weapons from spears and shields used in previous civilizations to the Mongolian Empire. 

Despite being a great teacher and teaching for nearly a decade, Oakman thinks he can get better and improve.

“I think that I can work on being more serious and teaching better as the year goes on. I want to make sure how I started in August is how I end the year,” Oakman said.