Mr.Otto has been a very unique and special teacher for the senior class. He taught students in 8th grade at Trinity Springs and would later come to Timber Creek to teach AP U.S History. This year he also went on to teach AP Government a class that is specifically a senior class to take along with Macroeconomics.
In 2014-2015 school year, Mr.Otto arrived to teach U.S History, at the time the senior class were sophomores and were shocked to see a past middle school teacher at their high school.
Savanah Mclain, senior, actually had Mr. Otto for 3 years in 8th grade, 11th and 12th grade.
“He was here my sophomore year and walking down the hallway I had no idea [he was at Timber Creek], I didn’t know half the teachers here, but walking down the hallway I saw Mr.Otto. I remember screaming his name “Mr.Otto!” and he turns around and he was like oh hey and I thought it was so weird. A week later someone actually told me he was working here and then the next year I took APUSH and I had him for APUSH and I thought well this is great, and then I had him for AP Government, its just been a recurring thing I love Mr.Otto.”
Mr. Otto has been a favorite for his style of teaching with educational fun activities such as trial cases, Republican and Democratic parties to learn about the election process, and his lessons for young adults. Through his class students learn about history in a fun engaging way that helps students remember for the AP test, and makes his students pay attention. With lectures he makes his class interesting with his famous yardstick smacking vocabulary words on his power points and it draws attention to words to remember for tests and quizzes. Mr. Otto was also recognized this year not only by his students, but by the Keller ISD School Board for his teaching and many students were at the local government meeting to support him (and because it was a requirement to pass the class).
Sarah Ulery, a senior had him for government recalls how she felt during his first year teaching the class and the AP test.
“I actually felt pretty good about it, I’m pretty confident I passed with better than a 3. I had no idea that this was his first year teaching government until halfway through the class when he said ‘okay guys since I haven’t taught this before you should probably get this review book’ and I was like oh god. I knew he was a really good teacher and people like him a lot, but I always assumed he had been teaching this class, but he knew what he was talking about it was just a matter of knowing the test which I think he did a pretty good job of figuring that out. He was hounding us on a couple things he thought would be on the short answers and they were so he did his research,” said Sarah.
Mr. Otto’s amazing teaching of U.S History and now U.S Government will always be remembered by the senior class along with his famous yardstick, classic blue collared shirts, and his love for video games.
“[Out of all 3 years with Mr.Otto] This isn’t really a teaching activity, but at the end of 8th grade, he does this still, but at the end of 8th grade. If you’ve noticed that arcade game he has in his room, it actually worked in 8th grade and so we played that and the last week we played Halo on the big screen and it was just great, because that’s also so Mr.Otto. I feel like that’s what he does at home, and so he brought that element to school and we weren’t really learning anything it was the last week of school, but we were playing video games and it was such a fun moment to have that ending experience with him and then like I said he popped up later,” said Savannah.
As the seniors would leave for college and it was certain Mr.Otto wouldn’t pop back up in a University the senior decided to get a class gift and picture with their beloved History and Government teacher. Mr. Otto was very excited and happy to have one last hooray with his senior class, and said that he would miss them dearly. Future classes will get to experience his love of teaching later on at Timber Creek and will see why he was so important to the class of 2017.