On Oct. 26, seniors who had math teacher Amir Ghavam for math analysis honors, over the past two years, got to spend a day in his classroom eating pizza and snacks while watching The Emperor’s Club. Twenty-three out of the 40 who were invited came. “I really liked the brownies since I have a sweet tooth,” said senior Gabriella Kchozyan.  

A group of students gathered in Ghavam’s classroom as early as seventh period in preparation for the party after school. “Hanging out in  Ghavam’s room is a hobby of mine,” said senior Derick Ambarzoomsadeh. 

“I got to see the awards Mr. Ghavam received while he worked for Boeing,” said senior Melanie Mesropian.  “It was exciting because we were the first people he’d shown them to on campus.”

“I always talked to my students about my awards from Boeing and NASA. Those awards have a special meaning to me, so I wanted the awards to take on a new meaning by showing them to my students,” Ghavam said.   

“Few of these awards were very special to me because they have been on spaceships and flown in space” Ghavam said. “For example, one of them that was awarded to me by an astronaut was a flag that flew into space for over five million miles on a space shuttle mission. I have a rare picture of two spaceships that are sitting on two launch pads at the same time. Hopefully the students got inspired. When I came to the U.S., I spoke no English, so working with astronauts was not even on my radar.”

“The movie was about a teacher,” Mesropian said. “I got really emotional during the movie. It made us all feel closer and realize everything he has done for us as a teacher. I would definitely want to do something like this again.”

“For a lot of us, he was more than a teacher, focusing on our health and supporting us, instead of the grades we got. My favorite part of the movie night was being able to spend memorable time with people who have become like family to me. We laughed, cried and joked with each other,” said senior Erika Hookasian.

“School is not only studying. There is a lot students can learn by doing activities that are not textbook oriented,” Ghavam said. “I wanted this event to be a life experience.We shared our personal experiences in the classroom. At some point, we were in tears. That was the best part.”

“I thought it would just be a fun event, but I ended up crying by the time we watched the movie,” said senior Nare Agakhanyan.

“The movie was very powerful and inspiring. You could watch the movie on your own. Still, the students who didn’t come missed out on something important,” Ghavam said. I wish we had the time to do more of these. The people who say we don’t do anything with our students at Clark, I think we do.”