Faculty Focus is a student life series, featuring a faculty member at Coppell High School, rotating by department, each week. 

Coppell High School World History teacher Connor Blake creates a worthwhile learning experience for his students, inspired by his journey. Blake shares his perspective on his classroom experiences, along with his goals and dreams for the 2024-25 school year, as he enters his seventh year at CHS.

What inspired you to become an educator?

I knew I wanted to be a teacher in eighth grade. The eighth grade U.S. History teacher I had, a man named Max Callahan, was a fantastic teacher and he inspired me. I thought his depth of knowledge and the intriguing nature of history and studying the past was just something I wanted to pursue, and I always did really well in his class. I really found him to be an inspiring individual. He was my inspiration, and throughout all of high school, I worked towards being the educator that he was and to inspire people, just like how he inspired me. He’s someone I still talk to this very day, but he’s retired now. He was a principal, teacher and oversaw all levels of education. He was my main inspiration, and I hope to one day live up to what he did for me.

How would you describe your approach to working with students?

I would harken back to what I say kind of in the first week; I want students to be proactive self advocates, no matter what level. I’ve taught on-level and AP, but I want students to take ownership of the class they signed up for, not to leave them out to dry and be on an island – I want them to seek help and feedback. If they are struggling, they come to me and say ‘Hey, I’m struggling in this, what can I do?’ My view is that I’m going to move everything possible to allow kids to be successful. Also, I’m not going to hand-hold. I’m not going to be that parent figure and constantly be on them about doing things. One part of learning is learning the consequences of one’s actions. Consequences can be both positive and negative, and that’s just life. We go through things, we prioritize certain things, and sometimes that ends up well for us and sometimes that ends up not so well for us. But, it’s learning ‘What’s my priority? What do I need to get done?’ In terms of students, it is very much just allowing them and supporting them with everything they need. I’m a big advocate of transparency, making sure they know exactly what’s going on in a test, so there are no kinds of surprises, but I also want them to be accountable to the information and not just try to find ways to get that information. Learning is a process, and I want to walk them through that process.

What’s a memorable moment from your time at CHS?

I would say my memorable moment is every year. Seeing kids from whenever I had them as sophomores to seeing what they’ve become as seniors. That’s just a memorable moment every single year that I get to witness seeing kids when they’re the smallest in the high school and then some go on and get accepted to schools like Harvard or into military academies is great.  Maybe college isn’t in the future for some students, but seeing what they do, seeing kids take ownership of their lives and start to figure out what they want to do is memorable to me.

What do you love most about working at CHS? What are your goals for this school year?

The student body is fantastic. It is a largely driven student body that has a variety of beliefs and outlooks, but they are still able to find common ground to work together in an environment. The student body is people who want to help others, which is great to see, so working with students that really want to be successful is something that I like a lot. The administration is also fantastic. People allow teachers to be professionals and try out new things. The administration is really great at being practical about what actually matters and not getting bogged down in the bureaucracy of paperwork. CHS is a great place; it’s why I’ve never moved out of CISD for seven years. It’s just a great place. I personally know people who work in other districts that have things that, to me, don’t seem like the greatest priority, or may seem like it’s something that isn’t really benefiting kids, but anytime I know of something that CISD or CHS is doing, it’s always with the idea that kids are going to be first. It’s a great place for me, and I continue to see my future here at CHS. My goals are to tweak standard based grading. In seven years, I constantly tweak things. It might not be a complete overhaul of something, but I’m constantly adding to something or switching up a lesson. I’m constantly finding better ways to make the coursework transparent, and make it more workable for everyone involved. The AP World History team has seven teachers, including myself and moving seven people in one direction can sometimes be very hard, because we all have our own ideas and try to get everyone’s ideas to be heard.

What advice would you give to new staff members at CHS?

We have a wealth of knowledge at CHS, whether it’s our administration, department chairs, team leads or even just leaders in their subject, it’s never bad to ask a question. Being a first-year teacher, you may sometimes think, ‘All these people have it figured out and I’m just not going to ask a question.’ Kids do the same thing and may not ask a question, because it might be dumb. People should just ask their questions, because usually that question is something that everyone else has a question about as well. New teachers bring a novel perspective that we haven’t thought about in a very long time, so it can lead to some remarkable change. My advice to new and young teachers would be to not discount yourself, because you think you don’t have as much experience, therefore your opinion doesn’t matter. Your opinion does matter and it could hopefully make CHS a better place, not only for teachers but for students as well.

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