After 38 years of teaching, history teacher and social studies department head, William Brown, announced he will be retiring at the end of the school year.
Brown has been a teacher for over 3 decades, and 22 of those years have been at MSHS. “I’ve been contemplating retirement for probably three years, been looking at it,” Brown said. “Each year it was one of those. I don’t want to end on that note. You know, coming out of COVID, I didn’t want to end coming out of COVID. I wanted to end on a good year, more than anything else.”
Brown originally started to teach as a way to stay involved with coaching which he started to do while in school. “It really wasn’t about the classroom, it was more about being on the field, being on the court, that type of thing and that’s what got me into education at first,” Brown said.
Being the current head of the social studies department, and a history teacher for over two decades, Brown has not only helped educate both current and former students, but he has helped prepare them for their future after high school. “When you give 40 years of your life in the service of other people’s children and helping them achieve their dreams, that selflessness is something to be celebrated,” Executive Director of Secondary Schools, Kolleen Johnson said.
For Brown, teaching is not just about teaching students the curriculum, but helping them prepare for life. “I would hope that the students know my first obligation was to educate them, to impart knowledge, and to try and have fun in the classroom as much as possible,” he said.
Brown’s teaching style has changed throughout the years. “When I first started teaching, I was 22 years old, and I was teaching mostly seniors who were 18. I was like a brother to them,” Brown said. “Eventually, you become kind of like the uncle, and then you get to the age where those are your kids. Now I’m at the stage where I’m the grandfather age for these kids.”
Brown hasn’t only taught at Manitou in his 22 years of working here, he has also coached multiple sports. PE and health teacher, Gabby Santos, is a former student of Brown’s and goes to him for advice for coaching. “He is somebody who I’ve turned to for volleyball and basketball and all of the things in the last four years I’ve been here and really heavily in the last two since I’ve been a head coach,” Santos said. “He’s got 40 years of experience with all of these things and being new everything feels big and overwhelming. And with the perspective that he carries, it helps me come back to what’s most important now. And how do you take on those things one at a time instead of trying to take on the world all at once.”
Brown has had a great impact on both students past and present. Sam Duff, a social studies teacher and mentee of Brown, remembers a time where a former student of Brown walked up to both him and Brown while watching the baseball team’s spring break tournament in Arizona. “A student from 10 years ago walked up to Brown and said, ‘You were the only teacher that gave me an F,’” Duff said, “but the fact that the student would still want to go up to Brown and say hello and catch up with him and hang out despite Brown giving him an F shows how much Brown cared about that kid, and how he won’t give you a free pass because he holds you accountable.”
Though Brown is retiring from teaching at the end of the year, he is not going to stop working entirely. “To me, the biggest advantage of retirement is I can do what I want when I want to do it,” he said. “I know I’m going to work part-time, but it will be where I want to work, when I want to work, and on my terms. I want to travel as much as I possibly can and spend as much time with my grandkids as I possibly can.”
While Brown’s retirement marks the end of an era for MSHS, the legacy that he has left on the school will influence people for years to come. “When you embrace life as being a quest for knowledge and you’re curious about what goes on in your world, that’s what makes your life fun. It makes your life enjoyable,” he said.
The impact that Brown has had on the students and staff here at MSHS is massive, and he will be greatly missed. The staff and students will forever be grateful for all that he has done for the school in his 22 years of teaching.
Everyone who knows Brown knows that he will always have a word of advice. “Embrace the day as a joyous event. If you wake up in the morning and you dread going to school, you dread going to your job, that’s not going to be a good life,” Brown said. “You have gotta simply say it’s a new start. It’s a new beginning. Yesterday’s done. Can’t do anything about it. Let’s go see what today is going to give me.”
