Nick Gallaudet: You are always learning

By Tyler Crowell,
HUB Correspondent–
Nick Gallaudet grew up in a family that was all about giving back. His mom was the City of Davis’ citizen of the year in 2004 and both of his parents work for the Davis Enterprise. Gallaudet says that his parents were always involved in the community such as volunteering, coaching, or anything else.

Although he is currently teaching history at Harper Junior High, history was never really his favorite subject. He enjoyed his senior English classes, such as Senior Writing Seminar, Children’s Literature, and Sports Fiction. They gave him freedom to write about what he wanted.

“I hadn’t experienced [that] in school before,” Gallaudet said.

Until his junior year, although Gallaudet had never liked history, he took U.S. History. According to Gallaudet, it instilled his love for history.

Gallaudet first began considering teaching as a career option in eighth grade when he had Social Studies teacher Chris Lee for American Studies, who showed him how fun a classroom could be.

In college he had professor Kathryn Olmsted who “showed me how fascinating history could be”. Olmsted’s focus was conspiracy theories in modern American history.

At Davis High, Gallaudet played on the varsity baseball team that won the section championship in 2004. He says that it was a dream experience that helped to shape who he is today. Gallaudet regrets not pursuing baseball after high school.

After everything that the Davis community had given him, Gallaudet decided that he wanted to give something back, just like his parent. He decided that there would be no better way to do that than to start teaching.

Gallaudet attended Oregon State to become an elementary school teacher, and transferred to UC Davis after his freshman year. Unfortunately after he transferred, Gallaudet found out that UCD did not have an elementary education program.

“I ended up taking a modern U.S. history class for general [education] and fell in love,” Gallaudet said.

Gallaudet’s parents instilled in him a sense of duty to support one’s community that kept bringing him back to Davis. As a result, he has worked for the City of Davis for years, coaching basketball and being the assistant director of the Vault, the Davis teen center. For Gallaudet, teaching is another way of continuing his parents’ legacy.