Jarvis encourages students to ask ‘why’

By Bralynn Sampson |

Growing up, Mike Jarvis thought he did not have to work that hard in order to pass, but he soon learned studying and paying attention was the best way. Now this is Jarvis’s 14th year of teaching; he spent all 14 years at Roosevelt but was a sub at different schools throughout the district area before that. He teaches world history and entertains his students with his many lively stories.

He went to college at University of Texas majored in History, which was something he always liked. He tried several other jobs did not work; he was working as a telemarketer before he ever really looked into being a teacher. Since he was always showing people what to do, coworkers and supervisors would question him on why he was not a teacher, and would recommend that he be one.

His empathy towards people learning easily translated into the classroom.

“I treat all my students the same,” Jarvis said. “I treat them like my own kids.”

Jarvis has accumulated a variety of humorous stories, but the funniest experience he clearly remembers happened a few years ago towards the end of May. One of his bombastic students had previously failed the course before and was placed into his class again to hopefully pass this time around. She had really bad hiccups this day, and could not focus. The entire class tried everything to make the hiccups stop. The class was recommending everything “try holding your breath for ten seconds,” “drink water,” “scare her, scare her.” It came to a point where everyone was just trying to scare her. She proceeded to say “Nothing can scare me.”

“I can scare you,” Mr.Jarvis stated and stood up.

“No you can not.”

So Jarvis walks towards her and quietly tells her, “You’re not graduating.” She gasps and fell in shock. Her hiccups went away very quickly.

“See I got rid of your hiccups.” The whole class died in laughter.

Working with mostly seniors, Jarvis tries to instill in them knowledge they need for graduation and life. Sometimes it’s difficult to convey why the students need to know the information.

The one piece of advice he wants all his students to know?

“You can look up what, but you have to understand why,” he said. 

His goal as a teacher of course is to have all his students pass, and he mentioned that should be every teacher’s goal.