
Phone:
Email:
Degrees and Certifications:
Mr. Proctor
I was born and raised in Torrance, California, and I attended South High School. I have always loved science - and I decided to study Engineering as my major in college at UCLA. But it was my history teacher in high school that eventually changed the path in my career. Several years into my engineering program, I decided to change majors, and become a teacher. And it was all because of Mr. Schwendemann. Mr. Schwendemann was my history teacher for 3 years in high school. His history classes were BY FAR the most challenging courses I took in school. We had NO TEXTBOOK. Mr. Schwendemann lectured to us using notes (essentially a textbook) that he wrote himself. We took notes on the lectures, and had to rely on those for the information in class (this was before the internet was available!) It sounds like the most boring class ever - but it was my favorite class by far! Why? Mr. Schwendemann made the lessons come alive. He would often teach the lesson to us in a story where he was the one experiencing the event... For example, Mr. Schwenedmann asked us "Did I ever tell you the time when I was exploring the great pyramids at Giza? I found an entrance about halfway up the side, which led to a passageway that led to the king's tomb......" We were mesmerized. --And he was just old enough where we really believed that he could have done it! I realized that I wanted to teach, and hopefully give my students a little bit of what Mr. Schwendemann gave to me.