Now in his third year of teaching as the machine shop instructor at the Dos Pueblos Engineering Academy, Mike Ringer has been teaching at DP for 27 years. Before starting at the Engineering Academy, Ringer completed his student teaching at DP and moved on to teaching grade 11 social studies here for 24 years.

“When I was in my senior year here at DP back in 1991, I said, ‘I don’t know what I want to do, but I know what I don’t want to do,” Ringer said. “I don’t want to teach, and then I ended up doing it anyway, but I love it.”

Ringer grew up with both of his parents as teachers, his mom an elementary school teacher and his dad a teacher at Santa Barbara City College.

“I’ve known what being a teacher looks like from the home side since I was born,” Ringer said. “So I looked at it and I was like, ‘Man, you guys work too hard.’ But then I realized there’s also all these other benefits of being a teacher…And I realized, it’s the whole apple from the tree thing. I have a certain skill set, because I had two parents that had those skill sets. And so yeah, I went ahead and pursued it.”

Ringer explained how he hoped to help his students through his teaching, emphasizing his hope that students get a better understanding of how the world functions.

“We often times spend a lot of time looking at things and going, ‘wow, that’s really fascinating and that’s interesting’ but we don’t know the why.” Ringer said. “Both history and engineering are different ways of understanding the why of the way the world works.”

When the opportunity to teach at the Engineering Academy came, Ringer took it. He has had an interest in building things since he was young and is now able to explore this passion through teaching.

“I had been building stuff since I was a little kid. I basically can’t leave stuff alone. I customize everything around me. It’s bad enough [that] it’s like a joke in my family…If I haven’t changed something yet, it’s like, ‘Well, when are you going to?’”

Although Ringer moved on to teach machine shop at the Engineering Academy, he hasn’t lost his love for history, particularly the Revolutionary period.

“I think [the Revolutionary Period] is such a microcosm of who we are. It’s like, it’s our starting point, but it’s just a starting point. It’s not also the finishing point…it set the foundation for becoming something else.”

Looking back on his life, Ringer can see just what decisions made it possible for him to pursue his passions.

“A lot of people will look at my trajectory with being a teacher and stuff and be like, ‘How did you end up in the DPEA? You’re so lucky.’ [but] luck is usually where preparation and opportunity come together…a lot of luck is the luck that you help generate for yourself by being prepared and having a good reputation and knowing things and all that sort of thing. And when the opportunity pops up, you’re ready to take advantage of the opportunity, because if you’re not prepared, it doesn’t look like an opportunity.”

Edited Oct. 25 for social studies grade correction.