| Ken explained that he builds his talks around stories, and uses the photos in his presentation to guide his retelling of those stories. And that takes him back to his early days in the classroom: “Early on,” he recalled, “I realized that if I was going to keep the attention of high school kids, I had to make them feel like they are there, like the events are real. I needed to make the history come alive and to do that I had to really know the stories.” Ken chuckled at one recollection, “I’d tell a story — say, Lincoln’s assassination — and one of the students would ask, ‘Were you there?’”
That drive to hold the attention of students grew out of Ken’s philosophy of teaching. “I never sent a single student off to the office,” he explained. “They hired me to solve problems not send them away. So at the start of every year, I’d tell the class, ‘This is the way it’s going to be. I am going to make it worth your time to be here. I want you to walk out here a better student and a better person. If that’s not what you want, then I’ll walk up to the office with you and get you transferred to another class.”
The will to make a difference still shows up in his choice of subjects for his lectures. Using one of his newest topics as an example, Ken said, “I look for a compelling back story. With Elvis, everyone knows his music, but I talk about the other sides of him, about what made him really, really different.” That thought led Ken to this: “In 1960, in Memphis, Elvis needed to make a phone call. This was back when there were phone booths on street corners. And to make a call you needed a dime, or whatever it cost at the time, and Elvis didn’t have any change on him. A man walked randomly by, and Elvis asked if he could borrow a dime. The man agreed. Elvis got the man’s name and address. He later sent him a thank you note, and with it, a document showing that Elvis had paid off the man’s mortgage. That speaks of character and another side of the man.” |
