As the year dwindles to a close, the joy of summer vacation and a break from school turns from a distant dream into a warm reality. While students, teachers, and administration are all looking forward to summer break, many will return in the fall. Some, however, will not. Upper school history teacher, subject coordinator, and EE coordinator Don Boehm is one of them, as he has taken a new position as DP coordinator, history teacher, and potentially TOK teacher at the French American International School in San Francisco.

Boehm has been teaching at WIS for 10 years, starting with teaching ninth-grade and then tenth-grade geographies, to then teaching IB History HL and SL to the 11th and 12th grade and has pursued degrees in history for most of his educational career. 

Boehm’s motivation and passion for history can be summarized by an Italian philosopher, and political activist in the 1920s, Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci discusses how everyone has a philosophy of how the world operates but we do not spend much time thinking about it. 

“Gramsci was saying that his political activism and writing aimed to make people more aware of what their philosophy and worldview is,” Boehm said. “I think that teaching history and the concepts that we talk about, the topics that we touch on, I hope, for some of the students helps build a more conscious understanding of their worldview.” 

This philosophy is something in line with the IB curriculum, which Boehm believes also contributes to a more immersive approach to history.

Before coming to WIS, he taught at the International School of Indiana, which was consciously modeled on WIS. Though he has been an educator for over a decade, it was not the career path he had initially envisioned. 

“I kind of backed into it [teaching],” Boehm said. “I had gone to college and I had started taking education courses, and I was like ‘These are a real drag’ and there were so many things that interested me at school, so I was taking courses in many departments. Stuff that wasn’t sometimes related to any practical purpose.” 

After college, Boehm taught for a year, met his wife, returned to school to get his master’s degree and worked in restaurants for six to seven years. “I was like “Oh you know I’ll be like a long-time student and work in restaurants, these are two good gigs,’” he said. However, the teaching gig soon turned into a more permanent position. 

The school Boehm worked at in South Carolina offered an exchange program where master’s degree students could teach in France. “After a year of doing research towards a master’s thesis and teaching as an English assistant at the University of Versailles, I got a teaching job largely because I was like ‘I want to stay in France a little bit longer,’” Boehm said. 

That was Boehm’s first time working in an international community, and it made him see the same things that had once sparked his passion for history in a classroom setting. “The discussion, the debate, the bigger questions, were all there [in the classroom], and so I kind of backed into it as a professional and found that the classroom could be a setting as we have here, where there are different viewpoints, and it’s quite an inspiring and interesting place to be and work,” he said. 

Teaching at WIS offered Boehm the type of engaging and diverse perspectives that mattered most to the analysis and approach to history. “I have grown to appreciate having a small group that reflexively everyone has slightly different views, a slightly different take,” he said.

“Everybody does have their perspective and that’s one of the things going back to what I’ve enjoyed about teaching in these international communities is that something that is emphasized in the curriculum but that a lot of kids come to the class with that already,” Boehm said. 

With this chapter coming to a close, Boehm has several key takeaways from being an educator at WIS and several aspects he will miss. “I may not be able to think back to past years and remember all the names of my students,” Boehm said. “I lose my memory, but I remember the sense of community, sometimes I think of it as a family that we created and that each one of the classes that I taught there was kind of a unique spirit.” 

Every class has its own unique personality and feel for Boehm. “I feel as though I’ve had families plural and that’s how I’ll remember each one of the years when I see that group of students,” he said. “I’ll be like, “Oh, I remember that atmosphere that group conjured and created.” 

Through his different classes, Boehm has been able to use his them to create a different and fun learning environment. He’s had students play pranks, one example being when his class attempted to convince an absent student about “Roosevelt’s Key Lime Incident” (which never occurred). 

Boehm’s fun learning environment can be seen through the class plant called Sir Ian Kershaw. Throughout all the years, all the classes have left some new indent behind which Boehm plans on carrying with him to San Francisco. 

Boehm will be beginning this fall at the French American International School, an International High School in San Francisco as DP coordinator, history teacher, and possibly TOK teacher. This is a large step that comes with some challenges and opportunities for Boehm.

“I think the biggest challenge and the thing that intimidates me is some logistical requirements,” Boehm said. “It seems like you have to make the tests whether it’s [Mock IB exams] or the May final IB exams as less stressful for the kids.” Moving to San Francisco is also a challenge, but having family that live in Southern California and the history and culture of San Francisco are all appealing to Boehm. 

However, there is one big component of WIS that Boehm will miss which is when students visit, as they only ever return once or twice in his experience. This feeling is heightened as Boehm will be in San Francisco, not in DC. 

“It’s just so interesting that these kids that you’ve developed such a special because I used that family analogy, bond with, and kind of see how they, that’s transferred over to college and the experiences they’ve had and the stories they tell and the subjects they’ve taken,” Boehm said.

With his time at WIS drawing to a close, Boehm hopes to leave a specific impression on his students and fellow colleagues. 

“I hope that I’ve been able to leave in place in my department or in the classes that I’m going to hand off to another teacher, a certain approach, a certain structure, that allows for students and colleagues to feel supported,” Boehm said.

By Elektra Gea-Sereti