Educator of the year: Chris Herriot


I love my country, but I must smack myself in the face for not being able to memorize some of the stuff that happened in our nations, but one thing I won’t forget is how much fun I had learning US History junior year in Mr. Herriot’s 7th hour US history Class. While I had him for US history, he also teaches psychology and Global Relations at arrowhead and is the head coach of the boys track team. I think Chris Herriot should win this award because of his dedication to teaching US History and making it fun for his students to learn it.

When I first walked into his classroom the first thing I thought was that I was going be overwhelmed with reading a bunch of pages in my textbook and answering questions at the end of each reading much like the social studies teachers I had in the past, but that was not the case with Mr. Herriot. His teaching involved methods that would make life easier on his students and that worked. Examples include just filling in blanks in our note packets from up on the power point, which were from the reading, group work in class where each student read a section from in the lesson, and each group talking about the section they read to the whole class, writing down notes during videos, and of course review games before tests. One other teaching style is that Mr. Herriot gives out very little homework. How this is the case is maybe because he knows his students are not really big fans of homework or that there are classes that his students take that give out a lot of homework. Another theory I can make is it was said from a rumor I heard that he once wrote an essay in college about how homework is ineffective with learning the material, but that is only a rumor. Another mention is that whenever he sees a student sleeping on their desks, he uses a very sneaky tactic that involves and air horn and when everyone else sees it, they stare in silence waiting to laugh when he wakes the slacker up. This has you learn if you sleep on the desk, you get the air horn and instant laughing from your classmates.

With foreign countries knowing more about the history of the US than Americans, Mr. Herriot maybe the only hope at bringing balance to the force and make sure Americans will know their country’s history for all time. His knowledge of the history, clever teaching skills, and trusty sidekick the air horn, Mr. Herriot helped in making the class enjoyable for me. That is why I think Chris Herriot should be nominated Educator of the year.