Amador Valley welcomes Matthew Willett to its History Department, where he teaches U.S. History and Ethnic Studies.
“At first, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to [teach] high school… And then when I started working with high school students, I really loved it. So I was like, oh, I’m going to do this,” said Willett.
Life Before Teaching
Willett’s first job was working at record stores, and he never expected to become a teacher.
“Teaching is like a second career for me. I worked at record stores for a long time before streaming decided to kill my business, and at that point, I kind of had to figure something else out,” said Willett.
As Willett searched for a new career, his connections in the music industry helped guide him.
“I had an internship at a really awesome studio in San Francisco. While I was there, I met a couple of people that were in bands that were teachers, and teaching had been on my thoughts of doing it, but then when I talked to them about how rewarding it was, that really pushed me over the edge to want to become a teacher,” said Willett.
Initially, Willett wanted to teach at the college level, but he found that teaching high school students resonated with him more.
“I really wanted to teach at the college level… But kind of learning what that entails and how hard it is to get a tenured professor job, [a career teaching] high school became more appealing,” said Willett.
Back to School
Even though Willett didn’t always know he wanted to become a teacher, he quickly discovered what subject he wanted to teach.
“There’s no other subject I would want to teach. I’m very much into history and psychology and economics and how the world works and why we are doing the things we’re doing,” said Willett.
Before coming to Amador, Willett taught Economics and Government at Monta Vista High School. So far, he’s noticed some differences between the schools.
“Here, they’re much more collaborative. The team works together a lot more…Whereas when I was at Monta Vista, they said, go teach U.S. History and do it however you want. And you didn’t really have those connections with other people in your team,” Willett.
As Willett builds connections with his new campus, he also builds goals for himself throughout the year.
“[I want to] continue to grow and meet more of the students, and build relationships with the students here, get more familiar with admin and the campus in general, things like that,” said Willett.
