Clarke Central High School Advanced Placement U.S. government and economics teacher Drew Wheeler helps a student on an assignment.Wheeler has taught at CCHS since 2003.“I get to engage with kids that I probably wouldn’t engage with on a regular basis. These are kids that a lot of the time you’ll hear people talking bad about and they don’t know these kids at all,” Wheeler said.
By JURNEE LOUDER -Junior Digital Copy Editor
Clarke Central High School Advanced Placement U.S. government and economics teacher Drew Wheeler’s job is not only teaching. He also writes movie reviews for the Flagpole.
Clarke Central High School students might have heard of Advanced Placement U.S. government and economics teacher Drew Wheeler. Wheeler is the teacher in who wears belts with bands’ names on them and shirts that always match his shoes, collects comic books, and and enjoys playing video games. Besides that, some students do not know much about him.
Wheeler has taught at CCHS since 2003. Although Wheeler’s job is to teach, he says his job has also taught him.
“I’ve learned a lot about how to interact with teenagers,” Wheeler said. “I mean, you don’t do a lot of that outside of school. You try and avoid teenagers, is what most people do when they go out in public and see large groups of them, but you learn how to relate to them.”
Wheeler enjoys the variety of students he interacts with at CCHS.
“I get to engage with kids that I probably wouldn’t engage with on a regular basis. These are kids that a lot of the time you’ll hear people talking bad about and they don’t know these kids at all,” Wheeler said. “It’s so much fun to engage with them and see how fun and smart everyone is. The range of kids you get to deal with is pretty cool.”
While Wheeler has taught for over a decade, education was not his original career of choice.
“For years I wanted to be a lawyer. (That’s) what I always said when I was a kid. Then I wanted to be a filmmaker,” Wheeler said.
And, in fact, his first major at the University of Georgia involved telecommunications, not education. Shortly after he graduated, CNN offered Wheeler a job.
“I was an Electronics Graphic Operator. I was like the last stop, the last check, the last spell check before it got (to the screen),” Wheeler said.
But, he ended up leaving his job at CNN and returned back to school.
“(September 11) happened, and I just didn’t really like the direction we were going (in),” Wheeler said. “So I was looking for other things to do and thats when I (thought) ‘ah I always liked school’, and I thought about going back. So, I went back to go get my masters and teach.”
Wheeler’s interests don’t just only include telecommunications and social studies, but he’s also had a long time love of movies.
“I remember getting really interested (in movies) in like the early ‘90s,” Wheeler said. “I started getting a subscription to a magazine called Entertainment Weekly and probably around there is when I really started to to think about (movies) and consider (it) something I was really, super interested in.”
He says that if he weren’t teaching, he would like to be more involved in the world of film.
“I’d make movies. I’d be a filmmaker. I’d be more involved in that world and be able to experience that and be apart of that rather than just be someone who watches them and enjoys them a lot,” Wheeler said.
Wheeler then took his interest in movies and made a career out of it. Eleven years ago, Wheeler started writing reviews for the Flagpole. He now writes reviews for the magazine every week.
“There was an ad. I had been reading it all through college, and I always read the movie stuff ,and I always thought, ‘I could do that,’” Wheeler said. “Then they just had an ad in the paper one day to send in a résumé and a sample review…so, I sent it in, got an interview and they ended up choosing me.”
Writing for the Flagpole, while fun, does have it’s downfall.
“The best part is having a reasonable excuse to go to the movies every week, and sometimes that’s the worst part too ‘cause I mean it’s great because it’s like, ‘Aw man. I get to see all these movies this weekend. Awesome,’ Wheeler said. “And then there’s weekends when there’s nothing out, or what’s coming out is terrible, and I still have to go to the movies and spend my Friday and my weekend watching some awful movie.”
Though both his careers are completely different, Wheeler’s job of writing reviews ultimately helps out his teaching career.
“I think in one way, it helps me relate to my students at times…because I’m still seeing all these different movies that I might not watch on my own that a lot of my students are watching and seeing,” Wheeler said. “Then, I can talk about it with them. There’s a relatability that I think it allows me to have that I wouldn’t have if I were not going and watching all the movies that I do go end up seeing.”
