By: Fernando Leiva
Written: October 6th, 2023
Dr. Gates is the new Interactions teacher at Grant, he is a published author and educator with two decades of experience in the field. In this third installment of interviewing new Lancer teachers, we talked with Dr. Gates about his values and education:
Good afternoon! As always, what is your previous teaching experience?
Biology is my main credential, and I’ve been teaching since 2000. Twenty-three years of experience, in both middle school and high school.
Can you tell us more about your education?
For my bachelor’s, I graduated from USC in 1994. Afterward, I got my master’s and doctorate at CalState LA, with an EdD (a doctorate in education) in 2012.
What brought you to Grant?
The opportunity to be engaged in a school with lots of spirit.
What is your favorite thing about Grant so far?
I like the participation that students and faculty put into school spirit, especially the sports. Grant has a lot of good sports programs and athletes who take their sport seriously.
What subject do you teach? Is there a particular area you like teaching about that subject?
Interactions. I teach science and I teach young people to believe in themselves. [As for the latter] hands-on kinesthetic application of knowledge— using your stuff, because that’s how knowledge is learned.
Is this a value you like to pass on to your students? Practicing the knowledge you gain in your classroom?
I believe it’s useful in anybody’s application of their life. Ben Franklin has a phrase where he says, “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn,” and that guy ended up on the one-hundred-dollar bill!
Speaking of kinesthetics, is there any sport that you like to do?
Life. I like to train for the outdoors, for mobility and function. There are two sports in the world, football and everything else.
Are there any football teams you follow?
I follow only one team, the one I was a part of— the USC Trojans.
Have you ever participated in any other athletic competitions?
Every day is a competition against two people— the external world and myself— [that being] my former self and my future self.
We’ve talked quite a bit about sports. What do you value the most about athletics?
I value commitment and the lessons you can learn from sports, since sports are the application of knowledge and your training.
Onto some more miscellaneous questions! What is your favorite book and movie?
One of my favorite books is Around The World In Eighty Days. I loved traveling as a kid and it made me want to travel the world. My favorite movie is Platoon (1986), it’s about Vietnam, my father served in Vietnam [War] and it made me interested in learning more about its history.
If you could have dinner with one person, dead or alive, who would it be and why?
Abraham Lincoln. I think that he wouldn’t eat a lot of food because he was so skinny.
Do you have an interest in American history?
I believe American history is an essential part of any person’s education that they should know as an American citizen.
To close off, what is the best piece of advice you’ve ever received, or the best advice you can offer to students?
That is a very interesting question. It’s like saying, “Which cookbook is the best?” Well, there are different kinds of cookbooks that cook different kinds of meals. And the skill of the chef makes a difference. So there really is no one piece of advice that is the best. There are some things that you can live by that are true. Some of the best advice from people that I’ve looked through is: to be successful, it doesn’t matter what you do, you have to work. Do the do. And everything in life falls under the umbrella of work, so you might as well put work into what you want to achieve… I call this a Dr. Gates-ism: learn it sooner, use it longer. I’ve also been given the advice to create the future that you want, versus letting the world give you the future that happens to you.
Dr. Gates, we appreciate your insight and we wish you a great rest of the school year at Grant!
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