Kudos to Carmichael

Whitefish teacher lauded as best in state

It was the wolf ears, shades, black leather jacket and Brooklyn drawl that did it.

Years later, more than one student in Gary Carmichael's Whitefish High School history classes still sees him as the misunderstood wolf in "The True Story of the Three Little Pigs."

Back in 1997 and '98, he figured he was just the new Muldown Elementary librarian having a little fun while reading a jazzed-up version of a fairy-tale classic to his young charges.

Years after his 1999 transfer to the high school history post, he's still up to his captivating ways.

Carmichael's ability to engage students in learning is being heralded statewide by his peers.

The Montana Professional Teaching Foundation last week named him the 2007 Montana Teacher of the Year. Montana Education Association/Montana Federation of Teachers created the foundation in 1996 to enhance the teaching profession and promote quality education.

Carmichael will meet President George W. Bush in the spring as the top teachers from all states gather for the National Teacher of the Year event. He'll attend International Space Camp in Alabama next summer. And he'll be a spokesman for the profession all year long.

Only one thing: Seems his peers may not have known about his Big Bad Wolf gig.

Not to worry, he's cleaned up his image since then.

He tossed out the wolf ears in favor of having students create their own digital movies. He converts the story of Henry VIII into the classic soap opera, "As the Monarchy Turns." He teaches computer graphing techniques so students can deepen their Civil War research. He helps them connect Grandma and Grandpa to true-life stories of the Great Depression. He digs out the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps and census data so students can walk through Whitefish history, tracing water lines and old-time businesses and the rise and fall of lifestyles.

"You think you just do what you do," Carmichael said, glad for the chance afforded by this new honor to reflect on what happens in his classroom.

"But the activities and the way things are delivered makes it interesting and makes it exciting to teach."

His wife, Dana, encouraged Carmichael to follow up with a formal application after he was nominated for Teacher of the Year. Dana Carmichael, a social studies teacher at Whitefish Middle School, knew this could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

In the process, he scrutinized why he works so hard to activate student interest in the history they are learning.

"Students who are actively involved as working historians can discover not only the content being taught and the technological skills being used, but also the problem-solving processes they will need in later life," he wrote in his application. "That is what teaching is all about: Preparing students for the future."

That's what his own mother did for his future.

As young boys, he and his big brother piled into the family car for day trips from their Missoula home to Montana ghost towns, the mines and copper kings' homes of Butte, and the Daly Mansion.

His grandparents were friends with the Daly family, so Carmichael saw films and photos of their shared times. His great-grandfather built the Daly horse stable. His dad and grandfather were from Butte.

"We have a little family history," the fourth-generation Montanan recounted, "so we would retrace that."

That trail came alive in later years for both boys.

Today, he calls his brother "Mr. Lewis and Clark History." Carmichael himself carries the passion as he and his wife raise their two sons.

"I try to recreate those experiences," he said. "The other day my 6-year-old pulled out some books [and asked], 'Dad, can we read some history books? I love history.'"

Carmichael earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in history and political science from the University of Montana, with a minor in library media.

He started teaching social studies in Saco, at a surprisingly high-tech school district on the Hi-Line with a "very progressive" superintendent, he said. "There were more computers than kids," he added. Students learned Spanish online, watched live NASA feeds and augmented classroom learning in a number of ways.

He became a library systems specialist in Great Falls, coordinating research services among several schools. While there, he also started working with the Discovery Channel School to help teachers nationwide integrate new technology, then to be a subject-area mentor for social studies and trainer for media literacy specialists.

Whitefish wooed him in 1997, and he's been here ever since.

Walking into Carmichael's history classroom guarantees a student the opportunity to be challenged into curiosity, involvement and achievement.

"We may not be able to memorize places and dates, but we've gotten away from that anyway," he said. Instead, students need to know where to find information and how to be discerning about their sources.

His own trip to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial prompted Carmichael to get his students involved in the Veterans History Project, collecting oral histories from local veterans and producing firsthand reports to be archived in the Library of Congress Folk Life Center.

Students layer technology with research on that and other projects, such as the original-source-based research into Whitefish history drawn from insurance maps, census data, plat maps and ethnic groups' living patterns.

Humor always is a magnet, he found - whether it's a video clip of Steve Martin as a "Saturday Night Live" Medieval barber who introduces the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, or the soap opera with a photo gallery of a dashing Henry VIII aging into a portly monarch but still able to attract bride after bride.

In it all, research reigns supreme. That's what he taught Muldown youngsters on the computer and in the stacks, and that's what he encourages his high-schoolers to deepen on their own.

"I love helping people learn, whether it be in the library or in the classroom," Carmichael said. "It's exciting to have kids learning, to see their lights come on."

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com.

He spent Sept. 16 interviewing in Helena along with the other two finalists, Kari Peiffer of East Evergreen Elementary and John Miller of Billings West High School. Carmichael received word soon after.